Elizabeth Dobbin, Soprano
Elizabeth began her musical studies from an early age with piano. She was awarded a Law degree from the University of Sydney with first class honours, an Arts degree specialising in French and English literature and a diploma in piano performance with distinction.
A keen interest in 17th and 18th century music led her to undertake advanced vocal studies in the performance of baroque and classical music at the Royal Conservatorium in Den Haag, the Netherlands. There she took lessons with Michael Chance, Jill Feldman and Peter Kooij and attended masterclasses with Emma Kirkby, Isabelle Desrochers, Christophe Rousset, and Paul Agnew. In 2008, she was awarded a master’s degree in singing.
She was a founding member of the ensemble Le Jardin Secret, with whom she won the first prize and audience prize at the 2007 International Young Artists’ Early Music Network Competition in York, England. The group’s two CDs on the Coro label attracted instant praise in the specialist press, winning a 5-star review in the prestigious Goldberg Early Music Magazine and Editor’s Choice in Early Music Today. In 2015, she recorded a further solo CD with Le Jardin Secret for the Belgian label, Fuga Libera, which constituted the world premiere recording reviving the airs sérieux of the neglected seventeenth-century composer, Jean-Baptiste Drouard de Bousset.
Elizabeth is especially sought-after for her performances of French baroque music, and she recently performed a concert and live broadcast for BBC radio of French and Italian music from the exiled court of James II and James III as part of the BBC’s Baroque Spring series. In 2015, she was the musical director and soloist in a concert for the Brighton Early Music Festival, featuring operatic solo repertoire from the court of Louis XIV.
Elizabeth works extensively across Europe and appears regularly as a soloist in oratoria and as a chamber musician in festivals such as the London Handel Festival, the Lufthansa Baroque Festival, the York Early Music Festival, Barock-Festspiele Bad Arolsen, the Festival van Vlaanderen, the Early Music Festival in Bruges, Itinéraire Baroque, Festival de Musique Baroque d’Ambronay, and the Resonanzen Festival Vienna. She has appeared as a recitalist in concerts in Japan and America and has worked with conductors such as Christina Pluhar, Richard Egarr and William Christie. Recent solo highlights include Mozart’s “Requiem” with the London Mozart Players, concerts and an artistic residency in the Trigonale Early Music Festival, Austria, and concerts with Polish baroque orchestra, Arte dei Suonatori, and Dorothee Oberlinger of Handel arias.
As well as numerous radio broadcasts, her discography includes recordings for the Coro label, Alpha, Pentatone Classics, Aliud Records, O.R.F., Fuga Libera, and Toccata Classics.
Elizabeth is also a keen educator, teaching singing at Winchester College in the UK and coaching advanced pupils and young professionals at masterclasses such as the Wessex Solo Singers courses, Sarum Renaissance, and in masterclasses in Europe.
Alongside her concert activities, she is currently undertaking a PhD at the Orpheus Instituut/Leiden University, researching French baroque performance practice as seen through the lens of a late seventeenth-century Ballard publication of vocal music. Recent academic contributions include several entries for the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Historical Performance in Music.