Llandovery based composer and performer Helen Adam comes from a Jewish Eastern European family background and has studied and currently performs Klezmer music, having previously studied viola, violin, piano and composition at Bath College. Since moving to Wales in 1995 she has studied Welsh traditional music, which has led to an on-going project to map the toponymic folk tunes of the country.

​

​Helen believes passionately in creating art that is accessible to all and has worked with children, old people and groups with mental health difficulties and learning disabilities. She been commissioned by the Small Nations Festival, Pontardawe Arts Festival, Cilycwm and Neyland schools, the Rising Tide inter regional project, and Cleddau Music Makers.  Since 2014 she has been involved in a project that uses melodic fragments from an ancient Icelandic manuscript and has performed the resulting new music at Siglijfordir Festival in Iceland.

​

Helen is obsessed with the sounds of nineteenth century industrial machinery — her 2010 opera ‘Merch y Felin’ which uses a 40 strong drum band was premiered in the National Woollen Museum of Wales.  Helen’s most recent work, ‘Tears of a Robot’ is a collaborative 40-minute piece mixing sampled sound, violin, and retro synthesisers.