Bethany Shepherd (1989) discovered her voice ‘by accident’ while dancing in musicals in her hometown of Armidale, Australia. She decided to continue her musical education by pursuing a Bachelor of Music in Performance at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music.
Having discovered a passion for historically informed performance practices, she moved to the Netherlands in 2013 to pursue a Masters in Early Music at the Royel Conservatoire in The Hague.
Besides the NKK, Bethany sings with many Dutch ensembles, including the Groot Omroepkoor and the Nederlandse Bachvereniging. While studying at the Royal Conservatoire, she and friends created the ensemble Le Voci delle Grazie, specialising in female early Italian baroque music. With this group, she performed at early music festivals across Europe and participated in the prestigious EEEMERGING+ programme supporting young talented early music ensembles.
As a soloist, Bethany has sung oratorio repertoire by composers such as Bach, Handel, Vivaldi and Graun. On the opera stage, she has sung the roles of La Fée (Cendrillon, Massenet), Belinda (Dido and Aeneas, Purcell) and Norina (Don Pasquale, Donizetti), among others.
Besides singing, Bethany loves dancing, reading, and baking — both cooking and eating! She has a very spoilt cat.