...was hatched in 1992 in the bar at All Saints Margaret Street one night after evensong. It is an all-female 12-voice ensemble, comprising professional singers from a variety of backgrounds and is conducted and artistically directed by Adey. Their initial purpose was to explore the repertoire for female voices across the centuries but finding this category restricted and generally deemed to encompass works for children as well, they were forced to widen their search.

Commissioning composers to write for them seemed the most fruitful way to gather repertoire and the composers they have approached have been sufficiently intrigued and excited by the concept of an entirely female chamber choir to produce some challenging works. The Egg has premiered over twenty of these since their formation.

In 1997 they were awarded Arts Council support to workshop a major new work, shimmering glimmering by Lynne Plowman, which was premiered at the Walsingham Centenary Festival in September 1998. This programme - The Lily That Dazzles – also featured sequences of Hildegard of Bingen, performances of some of the works they had previously premiered, first performances of two new pieces by Graham Coatman (Infinite Music) and Norman Caplin (Omnes Generationes) and the rarely performed Litany of the Black Virgin by Poulenc.

For a number of years The Egg presented an all-female Choral Evensong at the Stoke Newington Festival, premiering Rosa et Corona Canticles by Graham Coatman, The Baptised by Norman Caplin, Canticles by Bruce Grindlay and, in 2001, Canticles by Stephen McNeff. In July 2004 they were invited to sing Choral Evensong at Westminster Abbey with these latter pieces.

They were in residence at the Stoke Newington Festivals 1999/2000. In Shimmering At Twilight they premiered Charades IV (shortlisted by spnm) by Julian Allwood and an e.e. cummings setting do. by Andrew Wilson-Dickson and brought shimmering glimmering to London for the first time. Other commissions include Moving Into The Light by Graham Williams for voices and percussion.

In 2000 they formed Bacon, a male voice counterpart, in order to perform the complete set of Julian Allwood’s Charades at Stoke Newington. This was taken to full production by Battersea Arts Centre in September 2001 and again in May 2002. The audience was seated (lying down mostly) inside a huge and spectacularly lit tent with the 24 solo voices moving around the outside.

In August 2004 at BAC they workshopped and developed new repertoire for "foyer" performance. This is an on-going project which has so far produced Michael Henry's Stairs and Crossings and Stephen McNeff's Food and Drink. In May 2005 they supported Adey in a revision of McNeff's Names of the Dead with the Duke Quartet at BAC.

The Egg have a number of ideas on the drawing board
- a joint piece with Piano Circus working with the idea of musical relays
- a concert entirely of songs without words to be sung in the dark
- expanding Mike Henry's work to encompass even more surprising "guerilla" singing in unexpected places
- a new commission by the Spitalfields Festival from Naomi Pinnock.