Elizabeth’s performance of Richard Blackford’s The Black Lake and Britten’s Les Illumination has brought praise from the critics for her “humdinger of a performance” (Church Times).

John Quinn of Seen & Heard wrote:

“This quite exceptional performance by Watts was one which I was delighted to experience. My seat was at quite some distance from the platform but thanks to the excellent CCTV pictures I was able to see the soloist very clearly during her performance. Watts sang the work from memory and consistently demonstrated great communication skills and a deep engagement with the words and music. There was no artifice in her performance, yet her gesticulations – never overdone – and her wide range of facial expressions vividly put across the sense of what she was singing. But these attributes alone would not have been sufficient had the quality of her singing not been on a similarly high level. So, for example, in ‘Phrase’ she demonstrated a very fine control of the vocal line and offered sensuous singing. A little later, I loved the way she delivered the soft, intimate repetition of the Fanfare material (‘J’ai seul la clef de cette parade sauvage’). Her singing of ‘Being Beauteous’ was wonderful; expressive, controlled intensity early on gave way to more animated delivery as the song progressed. She made the last song, ‘Départ’ into a rapt, beautiful conclusion to the cycle. “

Liz will be recording The Black Lake in February 2026.