Elizabeth Watts

British soprano Elizabeth Watts began studying music as a chorister at Norwich Cathedral, though she studied archaeology at Sheffield University. After receiving the Myra Verney Recital Award of the Worshipful Company of Musicians, Watts continued her education on a scholarship to the Royal College of Music, where she took the advanced courses at the Benjamin Britten International Opera School under Liliane Watson. Watts joined the Young Singers’ Programme at the English National Opera in 2005, and in 2006 won the Kathleen Ferrier Award. She also won the Rosenblatt Song Prize in 2007 at the Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, and was named in BBC Radio 3′s New Generation Artists Scheme. Watts has performed for the Royal Opera at Covent Garden, the Welsh National Opera, the Aldeburgh Festival, the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston, and the Santa Fe Opera, and has collaborated with the Mark Morris Dance Company and the Royal Opera House in the Linbury Studio. She has sung with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, The Hallé, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Concert Orchestra, the English Chamber Orchestra, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the English Concert, the City of London Sinfonia, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Manchester Camerata, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, and Orquesta de Radio Televisión Española. In 2008, Watts released her first CD of Schubert lieder with Roger Vignoles, and followed that album with recordings on Hyperion, Pentatone, Linn Records, and Harmonia Mundi. ~ Blair Sanderson