Bettina Smith
Professor
Kontakt
E-post: bettina.smith@uis.no
Organisasjonsenhet
Fakultet for utøvende kunstfag
Avdeling for klassisk musikk
Kort om meg
Mezzosoprano Bettina Smith is a performing artist and Professor of classical singing at the Faculty of Performing Arts, University of Stavanger, Norway. She has also taught singing at the Franz Schubert Institute at Baden bei Wien, the Grieg Academy University of Bergen, the Amsterdam Conservatory of Music, and the Norwegian Academy of Music.
Bettina began her studies at the Bergen Conservatory of Music where she graduated with the highest degree. She then pursued her studies with Wout Oosterkamp and Elly Ameling at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Den Haag, The Netherlands, receiving a Masters Degree with distinction. Bettina then specialized at the Internationales Opernstudio des Opernhaus Zürich, Switzerland. The two year engagement included several roles on the Opernhaus Zürich`s main stage. In 2001, Bettina made her debut at the Staatsoper Berlin in Rossini`s "Il Barbiere di Siviglia", and has since then been performing at leading operahouses, festivals and concert halls in Europe. In 2013, Bettina made her operatic debut in the USA, singing the leading role in John Bilotta`s "Quantum Mechanic" at the Fresh Voices festival in San Francisco. Bettina has a wide repertoire ranging from Medieval to contemporary music, and has extensive experience as an oratorio and cantata soloist, in addition to being an active chamber-musician.
Together with the Dutch pianist Jan Willem Nelleke, Bettina has given recitals all over Europe, including The Bergen International Festival; Zürcher Festspiele; The Rhijnauwen Kamermuziekfestival; Oude Muziek Festival Utrecht; Mozart Tage Luzern; Bach Tage Luzern; Brahms Festival Den Haag; Hindemith Festival Den Haag; The Strawinsky-Festival 2000 at Het Muziekteater Amsterdam, just to mention a few.
Bettina has made radio recordings for Dutch, German, Swiss and Norwegian broadcasting and has received several prestigious scholarships, a.o. the Edwin Ruud Stipend and the Herbert von Karajan Music Legacy. She was a prizewinner in the Françesco Viñas competition in Barcelona 2001, and was awarded a special prize given by Dalton Baldwin for outstanding lieder-singing.
Bettina has released five solo CDs with pianists Einar Røttingen and Jan Willem Nelleke, all to great international acclaim, on label LAWO. (www.lawo.no). The first containing songs by Gabriel Fauré, Ernest Chausson and Camille Saint-Saëns, the second containing works by contemporary Norwegian composers Fartein Valen, Ketil Hvoslef and Jostein Stalheim, the third with songs by Gabriel Fauré and Claude Debussy, and the fourth containing cycles for voice and piano by Gabriel Fauré. With these four CDs, Bettina has recorded all the cycles for voice and piano by Gabriel Fauré. Her fifth solo CD, "The Artist`s Secret", containing works by women composers, was released in 2021 to great international acclaim. For this CD Bettina was nominated female singer of the year by the prestigious OPUS Klassik in Germany. Her 6th CD, containing songs by Norwegian composers Agathe Backer Grøndal, Anne Marie Ørbeck and Pauline Hall, will be released on LAWO classic in 2026.
Bettina Smith has worked with renowned conductors and stage directors such as Nello Santi, Franz Welser-Möst, Adam Fischer, Thierry Fischer, Petr Altrichter, Fabrizio Ventura, Phillippe Jordan, Kenneth Montgomery, Jos van Veldhoven, Erkki Korhonen, Philip Ledger, Robert Wilson, Grischa Asagarof, Claudia Blersch, Daniel Bohr, Ulrich Peter, Birgitte Fassbänder, Javier López Piñón, Hans Niewenhuis, and has participated in masterclasses with a.o. Elly Ameling, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Dalton Baldwin, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Oren Brown, Nigel Rogers, Jill Feldman, Robert Holl, Rudolf Jansen, Helmuth Deutsch, Ernst Haefliger, Walter Berry, Jörg Demus, Hans-Peter Blochwitz, Susanna Eken, Hans Gertz and Lorraine Nubar.
Bettina has also been active as a music educator in the educational initiative "Write a Science Opera" (WASO), and has taught workshops at the WASO sessions at the Scottish National Opera, Stord Haugesund University College, and the University of Stavanger.
From 2022-2024, Bettina was the project leader of the ERASMUS+ project "Voices of Women" (VOW), a project she also initiated. VOW was dedicated to promote Art Songs by European women composers. Project partners were The University of Stavanger, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Hochschule für Musik Franz Lizst Weimar and The Arctic University in Tromsø.
Bettina speaks the following languages: Norwegian, English, German, French, Dutch, Spanish