onceuponaman: Who is Sharon Janny den Adel?

Sharon Janny den Adel? The Dutch music world knows her as Sharon den Adela, she is a Dutch singer and composer, best known as the lead vocalist and one of the main songwriters in the Dutch symphonic metal/rock band Within Temptation. She has performed with various bands since she was 13, including a blues rock band called Kashiro, and joined Robert Westerholt in Within Temptation in 1996. (born 12 July 1974, in Waddinxveen, South Holland, Netherlands)

Within Temptation

Together with her boyfriend, Robert Westerholt, den Adel is one of the founding members of Within Temptation. She has defined their work as epic and cinematic. Her vocals play a major role in the band's sound, despite having never received formal vocal training. She possesses a very youthful lyric coloratura soprano voice, thus explaining her high tessitura and can be heard mixing a treble B-flat in the song Angels. Her voice is so thin that her head voice may easily be mistaken for a whistle register.

Before Within Temptation became famous, Sharon worked for a fashion company. As the band became more successful with their hit single Ice Queen, Sharon left the fashion industry to focus on music. She utilises her fashion expertise by designing her stage costumes and the band's merchandise.

Other bands

Sharon den Adel has performed on-stage and in the studio with several notable bands, including Armin van Buuren, After Forever, De Heideroosjes, and Delain. She sang the part of Anna Held in Tobias Sammet's Avantasia projects, and the part of the Indian on Ayreon's rock opera Into the Electric Castle. She sang the vocals of one Timo Tolkki song, "Are You The One?", co-wrote and provided the vocals for the track "In And Out Of Love" from Armin van Buuren's 2008 album Imagine, and sang on the track "No Compliance" for Delain's album Lucidity, as well as working with the band Voyage on the track "Frozen" (not to be confused with the Within Temptation song of the same title).

Personal life

Sharon den Adel and long-term partner Robert Westerholt have a daughter, Eva Luna, who was born on 7 December 2005. She was pregnant with Luna during the band's The Silent Force tour. They currently live near Hilversum, in the Netherlands and they have two cats, Haplo and Lola. On 22 February 2009, Sharon announced that she was pregnant with her second child. The band's website subsequently announced that, on 1st June 2009, Robin Aiden Westerholt was born. Going by the name of Aiden, he was born premature at 32 weeks & 6 days