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 and Northern Opera Group.

Season highlights in 23/24 include: 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.

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.

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 and Leeds Lit Festival in 2024.

She has collaborated with composers creating new work for the voice including Anne Chmelewsky (The Looking Glass, Pygmalion 2.0), Laura Bowler (Women Conduct), Luca Tieppo (Suggestions of Love) and Daniel Saleeb (The Promise). As part of the ETO Spring 24 season, she was delighted to collaborate once again with composer, Omar Sharyar, on his new opera for children, The Great Stink, with a libretto by Hannah Khalil.

Amy is an experienced actor who has an established reputation in musical theatre and operetta. In 2023, she appeared as an actor and a singer 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. She performed and wrote material for Ms Midlife at The Bishopsgate Institute, devised by Catrine Kirkman and directed by Mojisola Kareem-Elufowoju and made her debut in London’s West End in the Offie-winning (Best Panto Production) The Odyssey: A Heroic Pantomime at Jermyn Street Theatre.

After making her directorial debut as part of the ETO Perform programme in 2024, Amy is delighted to be assisting Victoria Briggs directing The Vanishing Forest for ETO in Spring 2025.