Biography

Amy J Payne is a mezzo-soprano, actor, teacher, workshop leader and stage director based in Leeds, UK.

Described by Bachtrack in 2023 as “one of the best comprimarios on the circuit”, Amy has worked with companies across the UK including: Opera North, Scottish Opera, English Touring Opera, Garsington Opera, Mid Wales Opera, Buxton Festival, Iford Arts, D’Oyly Carte Opera Company, The National Gilbert & Sullivan Opera Company, Tete a Tete and Northern Opera Group.

Opera season highlights in 23/24 included: Arnalta The Coronation of Poppea, Mother Goose/Baba the Turk (cover) The Rake’s Progress for ETO; Katisha The Mikado for Charles Court Opera; Dame Carruthers The Yeomen of the Guard for Opera Holland Park. In 24/25, Amy will sing Bobylikha The Snow Maiden and in the newly-devised Do not take my story for a fairy-tale, both for ETO. She will also return to Scottish Opera and Opera Holland Park as Olga in a new co-production of The Merry Widow.

Originally from South Devon, Amy trained at Guildhall School of Music & Drama where she was awarded the English Song Prize. She is also a Samling Scholar and holds a BA (Hons) in French & German from King’s College, London, where she was a choral scholar.

In 2022 Amy sang Elgar’s Sea Pictures with the Opera North Youth Orchestra in their inaugural concert and in 2020 she made her debut for Leeds Lieder in The Diary of One who Disappeared (Janacek) with tenor Nicky Spence, accompanied by Joseph Middleton. This season, she makes her debut in Opera North’s Kirklees Concert Season in a mixed programme of Parisian music with violinist, Susannah Simmons. This programme will be repeated at the Howard Assembly Room in 2025.

Alongside composer and performer Anna Pool, Amy has curated a cabaret of music by female songwriters, Frau, that’s what I call music!, which was programmed by Spitalfields Festival, Leeds Lit Fest and English Touring Opera in 2024.

She has collaborated with composers creating new work for the voice including Anne Chmelewsky (The Looking Glass, Pygmalion 2.0), Anna Pool (Mother Trucker), Laura Bowler (Women Conduct), Luca Tieppo (Suggestions of Love), Daniel Saleeb (The Promise) and Omar Shahryar (Sweeper of Dreams, The Great Stink). 

Alongside her opera and concert work, Amy has an established reputation as an actor and musical theatre performer. Credits include: Duet for One Voice (Cocteau) and Petra, A Little Night Music (Sondheim), both at Leeds Playhouse. In 2023, she delivered two monologues and songs with The Sunday Boys at The Lowry in Salford in We’ll Be Here Tomorrow, an evening highlighting the experience of those living with HIV and AIDS and performed and wrote material for Ms Midlife at The Bishopsgate Institute, devised by Catrine Kirkman and directed by Mojisola Kareem-Elufowoju. After making her debut last year in London’s West End in the Offie-winning (Best Panto Production) The Odyssey: A Heroic Pantomime at Jermyn Street Theatre, Amy will return this season in Napoleon: Un petit pantomime, both for Charles Court Opera, with whom she has enjoyed a working relationship across operetta, opera and pantomime for over a decade.

After making her directorial debut as part of the ETO Perform programme in 23/24, Amy will return to this role in 24/25 and is delighted to be assisting Victoria Briggs directing The Vanishing Forest for ETO in Spring 2025.

Amy works regularly both as a workshop deviser and facilitator for various community groups, choirs and opera companies nationwide, including Opera North and English Touring Opera. She is equally at home working with adults or children and runs a private vocal teaching practice from her home in Leeds.