Michaela Betts - Associate Composer

Michaela has always been surrounded by music coming from a musical family of song writers, singers, guitarists and pianists. She took up piano at the age of 6 and was inspired to perform after seeing her first musical 'Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat'. From an early age she wrote tunes on the piano but began more serious song writing for her music GCSE coursework. One of these songs 'Now You're Here' was signed and released as a single in Europe. Another of these songs made her a runner up in a BBC 'Going Live' song writing competition.

At 16 she received a scholorship to study full-time at The Arts Educational School Tring (now Tring Park). Here she gained her Grade 8 ABRSM in piano and singing and met her mentor Tom Marandola who later introduced her to Laine Theatre Arts. Whilst at Arts Ed she toured America and France as a soloist with their Chamber Choir directed by Vaughan Meakins and performed with them on BBC2's Choir of the Year competition as a semi-finalist.

On leaving Arts Ed, she pursued a singing career in the pop industry, performing in venues including Olympia Stadium, Jermyn Street Theatre, The Marquee, The Orange Club and The Road House to name a few. She joined the girl band 'The Space Babes' signed to Perfect Entertainment and met the film & TV composer Rob Lord. Projects with Rob have included (among other things) the soundtrack to the award-winning Hollywood feature film 'Slipstream' starring Sean Astin and Vinnie Jones and Hitchcock's 'Gas' for director Sylvie Bolioli. Through Rob she met the composer and recording artist Mark Tschanz whom she worked with on the short film 'Teknolust' starring Tilda Swinton. More recent vocal sessions have included The Nutcracker (the Untold Story) - based on music by Tchaikovsky, lyrics by Tim Rice and sessions for Joe Glassman at Hum Productions.

Through working in televison she was approached by the BBC to teach the actress Gina McKee how to play Bach's Well Tempered Clavier on the piano for the film 'Mothertime', directed by Matthew Jacobs. At this time she met the BBC TV Producer Des Burkinshaw who was looking for singers for an untitled recording project. This went on to become 'Theghostorchestra' with whom she released an album in 2005 and performed 'Songs of Love and Loss' with at the 2007 Edinburgh Festival. She also joined forces with the TV editor and musician Mike Willetts to perform on several dance singles including 'Miss U Bad' released on Black Caviar Records. Another TV creative Harry Leckstein invited her to lead singing workshops for his youth project 'The London Urban Collective'. This project empowers young people to write, record and promote their own album for an independent release under the guidance of Freeport Records in association with Universal Music, Community Channel and Youth Music Week. This lead to the staging of 'Purgatory' - an original Hipopera that sets Dante's Inferno in modern day London, which ran at The Pleasance Theatre in Islington leading to a run at The Edinburgh Festival.

Michaela composed the music for What Became of the Red Shoes?, Turned Out Nice Again! and Granny's Big Top Tale (Little Pixie Productions).

Michaela currently lives in Surrey with her partner and two children. For further information or to contact Michaela go to www.michaelabetts.co.uk