Singer
Born in Australia, Adey trained as a dancer and actor as well as a singer. She worked in radio broadcasting, choral music, drama and musical theatre (original Australian casts of Cats and Les Miserables) before she ran away. She has worked in the UK since 1988 for companies including the Royal Opera House, English National Opera, English Touring Opera, Opera North, Welsh National Opera, Music Theatre Wales, Tête à Tête and D'Oyly Carte in classical repertoire from mainstream to contemporary.
Adey’s passion is devising and developing new work with contemporary artists in all media.
She has created soprano roles in many contemporary music theatre pieces such as:
- Julian Grant's Jump Into My Sack
- John Woolrich's In The House Of Crossed Desires
- Graham Coatman's Giovanni's Women
- Ian McQueen's Picasso Out Of The Blue
- Derek Clark's The Forest Child
- Wim Henderickx's The Triumph of Spirit Over Matter
- Russell Keable’s Burning Waters
- Tête à Tête’s Family Matters
- Stephen McNeff's Passions and Names Of The Dead
- Michael Henry’s Circus Tricks
- Richard Thomas’ Jerry Springer-The Opera, Stand Up, Kombat Opera Presents and Cattle Call
- Stephen Bentley-Klein's A Quiet Life
- Melanie Wilson's Opera For The Unknown Woman
- Matthew Kaner's Hansel & Gretel - A Nightmare In Eight Scenes
In 2005 she performed, to much acclaim, a new realisation by Waut Koeken of Peter Maxwell Davies' The Medium for Musiektheater Transparant in Antwerp and at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires. For several years she was an Associate Artist at Battersea Arts Centre, involved in devising numerous new works and also worked several residencies as a singer for the Jerwood Opera Writing Course at Snape Maltings. Other new work includes Anna Nicole by Mark Anthony Turnage at the Royal Opera House, 57 Hours by Pete Wyer at the National Theatre Studios, The Drapchi Songs, also by Pete Wyer, at ROH2 and Dr Dee at English National Opera. She has regularly appeared with the Impropera company. In 2014 she joined the Almeida Theatre to play Edna Krabapple in their newly realised production of Mr Burns and in 2017-18 provided the vocal incidental music for the Young Vic's hit production of Yerma in London and New York. In 2018, she brought to life Poet Laureate Simon Armitage's retelling of Hansel & Gretel with the Goldfield Ensemble.
For the notorious Richard Thomas, she created the pole dancer Shawntel in Jerry Springer-The Opera at BAC and Mags in Stand Up at the Schauspielhaus in Hannover. She has also appeared with Thomas in his cabarets Kombat Opera Klubneit and The Lonely Death of Weihnachtsmann and The Emergency Recital. She played several roles in his five television pieces, Kombat Opera Presents, which were broadcast in 2007 on BBC2. In 2007 and 2008 she helped devise and played Maria 1 in Cattle Call with Thomas and Javier de Frutos at Phoenix Dance Theatre and she was also involved in the devising of Shoes at Sadlers Wells.
She has made concert and recital appearances at Wigmore Hall, St John's Smith Square, Purcell Room, Holywell Music Room, Snape Maltings, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, York Early Music Centre, Royal Albert Hall, Birmingham Symphony Hall, Bridgewater Hall, Handel House, the Hackney Community Farm and Selfridges carpark.
She was a founder member of the jazz/world/contemporary fusion group The Shout - 16 diverse singers who are drawn from vocal traditions and styles all around the world. And she is delighted to have been scooped up by The Collective, a new maverick choir run by the irrepressible Joe Bunker.
She can play the Hawaiian guitar on her nose, knits socks and teacosies and grows comically shaped tomatoes.