Janis Kelly studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama in her native Glasgow, at the Royal College of Music in London and with Elisabeth Grummer in Paris.  She has won many major awards including the Anna Innstone Award from Capital Radio, scholarships from the Arts Council, the Countess of Munster Trust, Caird and the Royal Society of Arts.  She is recognised as an excellent actress with a wide-ranging repertoire across the fields of opera, operetta and the musical.  She is a regular guest with English National Opera where her engagements have included Countess Figaro's Wedding, the title role in Offenbach's La Belle Vivette, Yum Yum The Mikado, Rose in Kurt Weill's Street Scene as well as roles in operas by Monteverdi, Purcell, Humperdink, Offenbach, Birtwhistle and Glass. For Opera North she has performed Countess Marriage of Figaro, Musetta La Boheme and Magnolia in the company's award winning co-production with the RSC of Showboat.  Janis Kelly has made frequent appearances in David Freeman's productions for Opera Factory, singing Ottavia The Coronation of Poppea, Calisto and Juno La Calisto and Flora in Tippett's Knot Garden as well as recording Susanna, Zerlina and Despina in Opera Factory's Mozart cycle for Channel 4 TV.  Other roles have included Rosalinda in Scottish Opera's new production of Die Fledermaus, Dorabella Cosi fan Tutte at Garsington Opera, Mimi La Boheme with Opera South in Cork. Abroad, Janis Kelly has appeared with Opera Factory Zurich, Anchorage Civic Opera, Handel Opera and at the Midem Festival in Cannes.  Other festival performances have included Iris Semele with Les Arts Florissants/William Christie at Aix-en-Provence, Amaranta in Haydn's La Fedelta Premiata at Garsington, the title role in Rospigliosi's La Baltasara with the Scottish Early Music Consort, the Governess The Turn of the Screw for Bath & Wessex Opera and Tatyana Eugene Onegin for Kentish Opera.  

Janis Kelly has performed Weill with the Matrix Ensemble/Robert Ziegler and Handel with Les Arts Florissants/Christie at the BBC Proms; in the UK she has sung Poulenc with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, J Strauss with the London Festival Orchestra, Sullivan with the Halle Orchestra, Bach with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Schubert with the Nash Ensemble. Recent engagements overseas have included Purcell with The Sixteen/Harry Christophers in Spain and Bach with the Orquestra y Coro Cumminidad de Madrid/Paul Goodwin. Her extensive repertoire includes Britten's Les Illuminations, Ravel's Sheherazade, Canteloube's Songs of the Auvergne, Strauss' Four Last Songs and the major oratorios from the baroque, classical, Romantic and 20th century periods. An experienced recitalist, she has sung at the Purcell Room, the Grand Theatre, Geneva, the Aix-en-Provence Festival and for BBC Radio. Her recent performances of Kurt Weill songs at the Greenwich Festival and Schumann, Britten and Ravel settings of Robert Burns poems at the Highlands Festival, both with Julius Drake, have attracted particular praise. Recordings include videos of The Pirates of Penzance and The Sorcerer (Brent Walker Film Company). Discs include Tchaikovsky's Incidental Music to Hamlet with the London Philharmonic Orchestra for Chandos Records, Street Scene, A Little Night Music, Showboat and Brigadoon for TER Records, four award-winning albums for the Inspector Morse television soundtracks on Virgin Records, The Maid of the Mountains on Hyperion.

 Recent engagements include the filming of Zoë for Channel 4, The Fairy Queen, Yum Yum The Mikado, Despina Cosi fan Tutte, Romilda Xerxes, Alcina and Mrs Nixon Nixon in China at English National Opera, La Finta Semplice at Buxton, Rosalinda with Opera Ireland, Miss Jessel The Turn of the Screw, Kuma The Enchantress and Elisabetta Maria Stuarda at Grange Park, the title role in The Cunning Little Vixen at Opera North and in Barcelona, Violetta La Traviata, Magda La Rondine, Marschallin Der Rosenkavalier and Electra Idomeneo with Opera North, Iris with Flanders Opera and her directorial debut, Cosi fan tutte at Grange Park Opera, where she has since directed Iolanthe as the inaugural production in their new theatre. Current projects include Magda at Opera North, Alice Falstaff at Grange Park, Mrs Naidoo Satyagraha at ENO and a series of half hour operas commissioned for BBC2. Next year she will sing Queen Clémentine in Barbebleu and Foreign Princess in Rusalka at Grange Park Opera and Lania in a new Opera North commission from David Sawer, to be directed by Richard Jones. She can be seen as Liu Turandot in the recently released Hollywood movie The Life of David Gale.