Reaching Back to Ancient Greece
Saturday 7th November, 2pm
Hinde Street Methodist Church, London W1U 2QJ

Rachel Munro – soprano
Lotte Betts-Dean – mezzo-soprano
Nigel Foster – piano

The myths of Ancient Greece have inspired and fascinated poets, painters, sculptors, musicians and artists of all kinds for 3000 years, and their hold on the world’s creative imagination continues unabated to the present. These timeless stories of Gods and Goddesses, Titans, Sirens and Naiads, love, heroism and elemental passions, are brought to life in songs ranging from Schubert to Chausson, Roussel to Rebecca Clarke, Debussy to Durey, Bridge to Bizet, and Elgar to Erich Wolff, in a programme devised by Nigel Foster.

Rachel Munro is an Oxford International Song Young Artist. She is an avid recitalist who has performed recently at the  2026 Leeds International and North Aldborough Festivals and won first prize at the prestigious North Aldborough Festival ‘New Voices’ Singing Competition.
A regular at the London Song Festival, Lotte Betts-Dean was an Oxford Lieder Festival Young Artist, and her other festival appearances have included the Buxton International Festival, Cheltenham Festival, Lewes Festival of Song, Two Moors Festival, Norfolk & Norwich Festival and Tête-à-Tête Opera. She has sung leading roles with Opera Holland Park, at the Grand Théâtre de Genève and Sydney Opera House, and for the Bayerische Staatsoper. Her competition successes include the 2017 Peter Hulsen Orchestral Song Award, the inaugural 2018 Musician’s Company New Elizabethan Award, and the 2020 Overseas Prize and the 2020 Audrey Strange Memorial Prize for an outstanding singer at the Royal Over-Seas League Competition.
Nigel Foster is the Director of the London Song Festival. His career as a collaborative pianist has taken him all over Europe, as well as in Asia (Japan, Malaysia), New Zealand and the Americas (USA, Colombia) as well as London’s Wigmore Hall, South Bank Centre, Royal Opera House Covent Garden (Crush Room) and St John Smith Square. He has broadcast on BBC Radio 3, Classic FM in the UK and on French, Welsh, and Greek television.