British mezzo-soprano Bethany Horak-Hallett read Music at Leeds University gaining a Masters in Music Performance. She completed her training at Trinity Laban Conservatoire. Bethany was a Rising Star of the Enlightenment and a Samling Artist. She was a finalist in the 2020 Cesti Competition at the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music and won Second Prize in the 2021 International Handel Singing Competition.
Opera engagements have included Dorabella Così fan Tutte (Garsington Opera); Kitchen Boy Rusalka and Žena Katya Kabanova (Glyndebourne); Lady Psyche Princess Ida with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and roles in Iolanta and Will Todd Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland for IF Opera. Her repertoire includes Ino Semele and Dido Dido & Aeneas.
On the concert platform Bethany has appeared with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment singing Bach Cantatas and Galatea in Handel Aci, Galatea e Polifemo directed by Steven Devine; the St John Passion with Mark Padmore and Haydn Nelson Mass with John Butt and Royal Northern Sinfonia and Dinis Sousa as soloist for Bach Cantata 199. She made her BBC Proms début with the Monteverdi Choir and Sir John Eliot Gardiner singing Handel Dixit Dominus (broadcast on BBC TV and Radio). She has also appeared with Holland Baroque, the Academy of Ancient Music, Southbank Sinfonia Baroque with Adrian Butterfield, the English Chamber Orchestra with James Sherlock and The Instruments of Time and Truth with Christopher Buckland. She has given recitals at the London Handel Festival, for Garsington Opera, the University of Leeds and the Oxford International Song Festival. Amongst Bethany’s films and recordings are Cupid in John Eccles Semele with the Academy of Ancient Music and Julian Perkins; Bach and Telemann for OAEPlayer and Messiah for the Voces8 Foundation Live from London festival.
Her recent and future engagements include, Bach Mass in B Minor and Handel L’Allegro, Il Pensoroso ed Il Moderato with The Monteverdi Choir and Dinis Sousa; Messiah with The Dunedin Consort and John Butt, her Opéra de Paris début as Camilla in Thomas Adès The Exterminating Angel and Cherubino Le nozze di Figaro with Garsingon Opera.
