Noted for her clear tone and engaging stage presence, mezzo soprano Claire McCahan is establishing herself as a genuine and dedicated musician of versatility, delivering compelling and energized performances spanning baroque, recital, opera, and contemporary repertoire.
Winner of the 2022 National Association of Teachers of Signing 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 such creative programming of contemporary and classic repertoire. The duo recently 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. In May 2024, Claire joined the inaugural Fellowship of the Song with the Cincinnati Song Initiative.
Recognized for her interpretations of Baroque works, Claire is a 2023 Early Music America Workshop Scholarship recipient. She is a frequent soloist with the Boulder Bach Festival (BBF), and can be heard as a featured artist on the Festival’s first commercial album, released in June 2023. She will join BBF in 2025 for a concert highlight works by Barbara Strozzi, Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Francesca Caccini, and Isabella Leonarda. Recent highlights include performing Berlioz with the Silesian Philharmonic in Katowice, Poland, her fellowship with the American Bach Soloists Academy, soloist in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with the Colorado Bach Ensemble, soloist with the New Hampshire Music Festival, and soloist in Handel’s Messiah with the Boulder Bach Festival and the Longmont Symphony Orchestra.
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 at Opera with Opera Steamboat.
An avid proponent of new works, 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 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 she conjures. Claire contributed vocals and writing to Mirror State, an interdisciplinary virtual exhibit combining music composition, visual art, and geologic scientific inquiry through the NEST Studio for the Arts, and was a composer with the Colorado Lullaby Project in conjunction with Carnegie Hall. Claire also is 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.
PRESS
Photo credit: Mineral Sound
“An exceptionally beautiful piece of early baroque music, [J.C. Bach’s “Lamento’] is given a transcendent reading by mezzo-soprano Claire McCahan. The vocal lines are intricate, highly ornamented, and rhythmically complex, as are the supporting ones for string instruments. ”
“The night’s third aria, Dry Those Eyes... was sung by mezzo-soprano Claire McCahan... McCahan’s rich, warm voice was perfect for a cold winter evening’s performance and left the audience audibly gasping at the piece’s unfortunate brevity.”
“While Orfeo was male in the older opera, in Underland the character is played by Claire McCahan, an indomitable mezzo soprano whose voice has the force of a tornado... From the first moment you see her, McCahan communicates the granite-like solidity of Orfeo. Her submergence in sadness is almost stubborn—she clings to it because it’s the only way of clinging to Euridice.”
“[As Cherubino,] Claire McCahan was a lively, boyish adolescent with rich lyric mezzo voice and a natural bent for comedy.”
“Ms. McCahan’s captivating stage presence and vocal virtuosity drive her all-consuming performances. ”
“Mezzo Claire McCahan was radiant as Sibella with a gorgeous rounded tone that brought to mind the poised sound of Julie Andrews. ”
