10/07/2023
Ian Adam, vocal coach to leading West End and Broadway stars, has died in London after a short illness. He worked closely with Andrew Lloyd Webber on many of his most successful shows such as Evita, Cats, Starlight Express and Phantom and coached the legendary OLC of Les Miserables. His penetrating, intensely musical and inspirational teaching had a profound influence on the singing style of artists like Michael Crawford, Elaine Paige and Michael Ball, and indeed the success of the British Musical in the 1980s owes a good deal to his committed husbandry of the singers in his care.
All of us who worked with him shall miss his wicked and unrepeatable humour as well his immense kindness and generosity. He would often waive his fee in the case of exceptional but poor students, and to the confusion of his accompanists, myself included, operated a complicated system of billing depending on the resources of his proteges, with top rates only for those sent direct from Hollywood studios. One of his last projects was the film of Sweeney Todd.
Ian had literally hundreds of friends: his phone book read like a Who's Who of Musical Theatre, and to all of them he gave unstinting encouragement and support. Whether they were household names like Twiggy, Jeremy Irons, Stephanie Powers, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Michael Crawford, Kenneth Branagh or Sally Anne Howes, all of whom I had the privilege to work with in his studio, or struggling young drama school hopefuls, he found time for everyone. As he once said in a TV series about singing that brought him instant national fame in the late 80s, anybody can learn to sing. If anyone could make that true it was Ian. With his deep musicianship ( he worked as a young man with Benjamin Britten and had a profound love of opera) and his genius for bringing out the potential in any voice, he brought a touch of magic to the London and Broadway stage.
