Noted for her clear tone and engaging stage presence, mezzo soprano Claire McCahan is establishing herself as a genuine and dedicated musician of versatility. Guided by a focus on storytelling, Claire utilizes her dramatic skill and thoughtful interpretations to deliver compelling and energized performances spanning baroque, recital, opera, and contemporary repertoire.

Winner of the 2022 National Association of Teachers of Singing Artist Awards and the 2022 Joy in Singing International Art Song Competition, Claire is an accomplished recitalist devising programs aimed at revealing connected themes across time and language. Along with collaborative pianist Barbara Noyes, she co-founded Horizon Duo, dedicated to creative programming of contemporary and classic repertoire. The duo made their recital debut in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in February 2023 and were finalists in the 2023 Federation of the Art Song Fellowship Competition. Claire is also a co-founder of The Living Land Collaborative along with her sister, landscape architect Molly McCahan. Still in its nascency, the collaborative explores creative processes which use land-based experiences as the seeds for artistic expression. Their current project Spiral Songs is an immersive experience which invites participants to attune to the seasonal changes of our inner and outer landscapes through music.

Claire is a 2023 Early Music America Workshop Scholarship recipient. A frequent soloist with the Boulder Bach Festival (BBF), she can be heard as a featured artist on the festival’s first commercial album released in June 2023. Other highlights include her fellowship with the 2023 American Bach Soloists Academy, soloist in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with the Colorado Bach Ensemble, soloist and host in BFFs Christmas Across the Ages with Claire McCahan, and soloist in Handel’s Messiah with the Boulder Bach Festival and the Longmont Symphony Orchestra. Claire also joined the New Hampshire Music Festival for their 2023 Season performing Berlioz’s cycle Les nuits d'été.

An avid proponent of new and relevant works that cross or defy genre, Claire has collaborated with artists such as composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer, workshopping the role of Brittomara in their opera If I Were You, as well as composer Ben Morris and librettist Laura Fuentes, premiering their jazz opera The Fall of Men and Other Tales and their children’s opera Colorado Sky. Claire recently collaborated with composer Lisa Neher and librettist Bea Goodwin as a part of Catalyst New Music’s FUSE: Collaborations in Song, which culminated in the Scottish inspired song cycle/mini scene she conjures. Claire also contributed vocals and writing to Mirror State, an interdisciplinary virtual exhibit combining music composition, visual art, and geologic scientific inquiry as a fellowship recipient from the NEST Studio for the Arts. She was also a teaching artist and composer with the Colorado Lullaby Project in conjunction with Carnegie Hall.

Recent stage credits include the American premiere of George Benjamin’s Lessons in Love and Violence at the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music, the role of Sibella in A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder with Opera Saratoga, covering Cherubino in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro with the Handel & Haydn Society, Orfeo in an adaptation of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice with Renegade Opera, the title role in Handel’s Ariodante with Eklund Opera, and Camille Claudel in a staged interpretation of Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer’s Camille Claudel: Into the Fire with Opera Steamboat.

You can find more information at clairemccahan.com.