Claire is a British/Irish soprano based in London. In 2023 Claire looks forward to working with City Music Foundation and joining the Monteverdi Choir for tours across Europe on the apprentice scheme. She will continue her work with Live Music Now and Opera Prelude on a variety of outreach projects and residencies.
A graduate of the Royal Academy of Music and the Britten Pears Young Artist Programme, Claire is currently a Young Artist with Opera Prelude.
In 2023, Claire devised Handel’s Europe, a programme of Handel Cantatas and German Arias presented in a chamber format with newly formed ensemble, The Portrait Players.
An avid linguist and lover of French song, Claire made her Oxford Lieder debut with pianist Guy Murgatroyd in 2019, returning to the festival in 2021. She has a growing interest in translation, both of song and opera, since her studies at the Conservatoire de Toulouse. In 2022 Claire developed a popular lecture recital exploring translating opera for Opera Prelude.
In the summers of 2021 and 2022 she performed with Opera Holland Park in the chorus of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and in the role of Frantik in The Cunning Little Vixen. In 2019 Claire understudied the role of Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro at The Grange Festival, and during the same year sang Venus in John Blow’s Venus and Adonis with the Royal Academy of Music.
Claire performed Bach Cantatas as part of the Snape Maltings Proms 2019, conducted by Philippe Herreweghe and as a student, regularly performed in the Kohn Foundation/RAM Bach Cantata series with solo highlights of Bach’s Wedding Cantata BVW 202 in June 2017 and Mass in F major in October 2018. Further concert highlights include Poulenc Gloria, Brahms Requiem, Smyth Mass in D, Macdowall Magnificat, Haydn Nelson Mass as well as Mozart Exultate Jubilate and Mass in C Minor in De Montfort Hall, Leicester.
When not singing, Claire loves swimming and in her spare time is usually training for a running race, or a triathlon.
Claire Ward 