Karen Adair, soprano

       Soprano Karen Adair sings the gamut of classical vocal literature, equally comfortable performing professionally in opera, oratorio, operetta, and art song. Her voice has been described as "crystal clear and so strong that when she sang everything else on stage melted away" (Ocala Star Banner) and "powerful and polished" (Daytona Beach News Journal). Of her solo debut with the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Marcello Mechetti of the São Paolo Opera Theater, Brazil, The Florida Times-Union  wrote "her voice made hearts shudder".  "Hers is a most expressive voice" (The Times Herald-Record, NY).

 In 2003 Ms Adair added two new operatic roles to her repertoire. She sang the title role in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly for First Coast Opera (Florida), as well as for her debut with the Delaware Valley Opera (New York), for which she headlined the review in New York’s The Times Herald-Record,  "Soprano Adair Soars", which noted her "warm and opulent voice".  She also sang the Mother in Menotti’s opera Amahl and the Night Visitors in concert in a return engagement with the Central Florida Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra.  Also notable in 2003, she gave two world premiers.  The first was at the International Festival of Women Composers at the University of Florida, singing the completed song cycle Catarina to Camoens by composer Valerie Saalbach of New York’s The New School (The Actor’s Studio), and the second was for her debut as a contract recording artist for the Apollo Project, Inc. on the compact disc Windswept, (to be released internationally in April of 2004), on which she sings, with Argentina’s Ensamble Rosario, two arias from the opera Love, Ted, by award winning American composer A. Paul Johnson.  Her 2004 calendar includes Mozart’s Requiem with the Central Florida Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, and an invitation to record a program of sacred music with the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra in Bulgaria for the Apollo Project, Inc.       

     Left:  Karen Adair as Carmen in EMMA Goes to the Opera.     

        Below:  "Art is calling for me" in The Lighter Side of First
         Coast Opera 2002

She has sung the soprano solos for Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem, Bach’s Magnificat in D, Vivaldi’s Gloria, and Haydn’s The Creation. She has been engaged as soloist with the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra with Music Director, Maestro Fabio Mechetti, the Central Florida Symphony and Central Florida Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra and Master Choir under Maestra Susan Robinson, and with members of the Savannah Symphony Orchestra in Savannah, Georgia. She has sung Puccini’s Mimi, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Christine from The Phantom of the Opera, both in concert with the Central Florida Symphony, and Clara in Gershwin’s Porgy & Bess, Kathy in Romberg’s The Student Prince, Donizetti’s Lucia, Mina from Herbert’s The Enchantress, Mozart’s Countess and Donna Anna, and Carmen, in scenes, having appeared with the dell’Arte Opera Ensemble of NYC, the First Coast Opera, and the Orlando Opera Company, for whom she was a Resident Artist.  She also remains an active solo recitalist in North and Central Florida.

Past coaches include Scott Rednour of the Manhattan School of Music, Maestro Paul Nadler, a regular conductor with the Metropolitan Opera; H. Wesley Balk, a leading theater coach; Maestro Valery Ryfkin, Artistic Director of Opera Santa Barbara; and Christopher Fecteau, Artistic Director of dell’Arte Opera Ensemble. She studied voice with Richard Owens and Elizabeth Peeler Graham. 

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