Karen Adair is a soprano who loves to eat chocolate, bike, swim, read, walk on vacant wet beaches, and practice yoga! A versatile artist, she sings the gamut of classical vocal literature, equally comfortable performing professionally in opera, oratorio, operetta, art song, and musical theater. Her voice is 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). The Florida Times-Union Fine Arts writer said “her voice made hearts shudder”.  “Warm and opulent”, “Hers is a most expressive voice.”(The Times Herald-Record, NY).

Ms. Adair delighted audiences as Yum-Yum in The Mikado for First Coast Opera (FL) in 2006. In 2003 she sang the title role of Puccini's Madama Butterfly for FCO and remains a favorite of FCO audiences, in performances with the company every season since her debut in 2001. Also in 2003, she reprised Cio-cio-san for the Delaware Valley Opera (NY) to rave reviews. Life after Butterfly includes recording sacred arias with conductor Kirk Trevor and the Slovak Radio Symphony in Bratislava, Slovakia in 2004 for her currently available self-titled solo CD. Backstage Pass Internet Broadcasting webcast her CD in its entirety in March 2007, following a webcast of selections from her disc on Tampa Bay Indies in November 2006. She continues to join tenor, Roger Geronimo, in his fundraising efforts for the Child Cancer Fund and the Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Disease through benefit concerts in Northeast Florida.

Since the millennium, she performed as soloist with the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra (FL), the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra (Sofia, Bulgaria), Ensamble Rosario (Argentina), the Central Florida Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, and the Jacksonville Masterworks Chorale. She garnered yet another superlative review with the Ormond Beach Symphony Orchestra in 2006. "Adair's solo, rising powerfully over its orchestral accompaniment, set the stage for a series of star turns." "Adair was a standout." (Daytona Beach News Journal). She emerged professionally with the Central Florida Symphony, members of the Savannah Symphony Orchestra, the Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble (NYC), and the Orlando Opera Company, for whom she was a Resident Artist in 1992 and 1993. 

Ms. Adair's credits include the soprano solos to Handel’s The Messiah, Mozart’s Requiem, Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem, J.S. Bach’s Magnificat in D, Vivaldi’s Gloria, and Haydn’s The Creation and Lord Nelson Mass, and the opera and musical theater roles of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, the Mother in Menotti’s Amahl & the Night Visitors, Yum-Yum in Gilbert & Sullivan's The Mikado, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Christine from The Phantom of the Opera (in concert), Lady Thiang in The King & I, and Nimue in Camelot.

Carving out her niche as a proponent of new music, she is privileged to work with award winning American composers and has premiered works by Valerie Saalbach (The Actor's Studio, NYC) and A. Paul Johnson (Florida Composer's Forum), and Bob Moore (The Cathedral Basilica of St Augustine, FL, and GIA Publications and CDs). Ms. Adair is an active recitalist in the Southeastern United States.

She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Music with Honors and a Master of Music, both from the University of Florida and is a member of and adjudicator for the National Association of Teachers of Singing.  Karen and husband, Tom, are the proud parents of a son, and a set of boy-girl twins!