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Vera Beths was born in Haarlem, Holland. She received her first violin lessons from her father, Gijs Beths, and continued her studies with Herman Krebbers at the Amsterdam Conservatory. In 1969 she won the First Prize of the Dutch National Oskar Back Competition, and in that same year she was awarded the Prix d'Excellence. Winning the Oskar Back Prize enabled her to study in New York with Ivan Galamian. In the summers spent in the USA, she played at Rudolf Serkin’s Marlboro Festival in Vermont. She now teaches at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague and, in the United States, at Marlboro.

Having an extensive repertoire, Vera Beths is much in demand as a concerto soloist with the various Dutch symphony orchestras. She has performed with conductors like Bernard Haitink, Kiril Kondrashin, Jean Fournet, Lorin Maazel, Walter Susskind, Edo De Waart, and many others. A champion of contemporary music, she spent many years with the Rondom Kwartet which specialized in this repertoire, whose other members were pianist Reinbert de Leeuw, clarinettist George Pieterson, and cellist Anner Bylsma.  Peter Schat, Louis Andriessen, Willem Breuker, Misha Mengelberg, Geert van Keulen, Philip Glass, and John Adams are among the many composers who have dedicated works to her.

In the realm of more traditional chamber music, Vera Beths also enjoys a splendid reputation as a result of her concerts with Archubudelli, an ensemble founded by Anner Bylsma, Jürgen Kußmaul, and herself. Using instruments strung with gut strings, they gave exciting performances of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century music. The core Archibudelli trio frequently expanded to allow for the performance of larger chamber works, including not only the mainstream repertory, but also many lesser-known Romantic period works. For Sony Classical's Vivarte series, Archibudelli made numerous CDs (often collaborating with the Smithsonian Chamber Players): many of these have received prestigious awards.