Elizabeth Watts won the Rosenblatt Recital Song Prize at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition in 2007. In the same year she was awarded the Outstanding Young Artist Award at the Cannes MIDEM Classique Awards and the previous year the Kathleen Ferrier Award. She is currently an Artist in Residence at the Southbank Centre, and a former BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist. Elizabeth has been awarded a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award (February 2011).
Her critically acclaimed debut recording of Schubert Lieder for SONY Red Seal will be followed in 2011 by a disc of Bach Cantatas for Harmonia Mundi, with whom she has an exclusive contract.
Current and future plans include Marzelline Fidelio for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and Kirill Petrenko; Susanna Le Nozze di Figaro and Pamina Die Zauberflöte for Welsh National Opera; Alminera Rinaldo for Glyndebourne on Tour; Serpetta in Mozart La Finta Giardiniera with the Academy of Ancient Music and Richard Egarr; Mahler Symphony No 2 with the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra and Yakov Kreizberg; Mozart Requiem with the Boston Handel and Haydn Society and Harry Christophers and Mozart Exultate Jubilate with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Donald Runnicles.
Recent concerts have included Brahms Requiem with the LPO and Yannick Nezét-Séguin; Mahler Symphony No 4 with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Vasily Petrenko; Haydn The Seasons with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Olari Elts and Richard Strauss Orchestral Lieder with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Dmitry Sitkovetsky, as well as performances with all the BBC Orchestras, The English Concert, City of Birmingham Symphony and Hallé Orchestras.
Operatic appearances have included Susanna Le Nozze di Figaro for Santa Fe Opera and WNO; Purcell King Arthur in Berkeley California and Handel’s L’Allegro Il Penseroso ed Il Moderato in London, both with the Mark Morris Dance Group, and Mandane in Thomas Arne’s Artaxerxes at the Linbury Studio/Royal Opera House which prompted Richard Morrisson to write in the Times "But the pick of the bunch is Elizabeth Watts, who musters buckets of passion and thrilling coloratura as Xerxes’s anguished daughter Mandane."
As a recitalist Elizabeth has performed at the UK’s leading venues including Wigmore Hall, and the Purcell Room, London, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester and at the Aldeburgh and Cheltenham Festivals and future plans include returning to the Wigmore Hall and her debut recital at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam.
Elizabeth was a chorister at Norwich Cathedral and studied archaeology at Sheffield University before studying singing at the Royal College of Music in London. From 2005-2007 she was a member of English National Opera’s Young Singers Programme, where she appeared as Papagena Die Zauberflöte, Barbarina Figaro, Music and Hope in Monteverdi L’Orfeo and in Purcell King Arthur.