about — EMILY ADOMAH — singer & composer

Hi, I’m EMILY ADOMAH,
I am a singer, performer and composer, based between my hometown of Bergen, Norway, and Basel, Switzerland. The voice is my most important instrument, and I am fascinated by its ability to tell stories through text, timbre, tone, phrasing, breath, and physical presence.

I have a bachelor in classical singing from the Norwegian Academy of Music and finished recently a Specialised Master in Open Creation at Hochschule für Musik FHNW in Basel, where I focused on contemporary performance, sound design, and improvisation. Through my studies and artistic practice, I have gradually moved beyond thinking of the voice only as a singing instrument and have am interested in what happens when the voice meets electronics, composition, field recordings, movement, acoustic materials, and space.

A big part of my movement from simply performing to also creating has come from being curious and wanting to make things. Outside of my formal training, I have spent countless hours at the piano, playing around with songs, harmonies, sounds, and ideas, and I taught myself Ableton Live as a way of bringing those ideas into another dimension. What started as an intuitive way of exploring music eventually became an important part of my artistic practice. I realised that I was not moving away from singing, but finding new ways of expanding what singing could be.

Today, I work across composition, performance, sound art, electronic music, and theatre. My work has included an artistic residency at Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts (BEK), a sound-art commission for EKKO’s Sense of Place, and compositions and sound design for productions at Det Norske Teatret and Det Vestnorske Teateret. I have also performed in contexts ranging from contemporary ballet Julia & Romeo at Theatre Basel, to Borealis Festival in Bergen, and have presented my own work in collaboration with musicians from BIT20Ensemble, at the Ultima festival and Kunsthall 3.14.

Whether I am singing, composing for a stage, creating a sound installation or working with theatre and movement, I am interested in the relationship between sound, space, and human presence, with storytelling as an increasingly important part of my practice.

The formal resumé and bio (both English and Norwegian versions) can be found and downloaded on the contact page under the press kit link.

Photo credit: (top) Agnete Brun, (bottom) Mila Elisabeth Larvoll