Mezzo soprano Claire McCahan (she/her) is regarded as a genuine and engaging 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, the 2022 Joy in Singing International Art Song Competition, and the 2023 Doug Davis Performance Award, Claire is an enthusiastic recitalist. Along with collaborative pianist Barbara Noyes, she co-founded Horizon Duo, dedicated to the celebration of American art song and creative programming of contemporary and classic repertoire. The duo made their recital debut in Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in 2023 and were finalists in the 2023 Federation of the Art Song Fellowship Competition, and semi-finalists in the Franz Schubert and Modern Music Competition.

An avid proponent of new works, she has been involved in premieres and workshops of contemporary opera and art song with composers such as Ben Morris, Lisa Neher, Jake Heggie, and George Benjamin through organizations including the Tanglewood Music Festival, Art Song Colorado, and Catalyst New Music. Along with landscape architect Molly McCahan, Claire is a founder of Spiral Songs, a project which curates immersive music gatherings which blend classical art song and folk song and invite participants to attune to the seasonal changes of our inner and outer landscapes through music.

Praised for her interpretations of J.S. Bach, she is a 2023 Early Music America Workshop Scholarship recipient, a recent alumnus of the American Bach Soloists Academy, and can be heard as a featured soloist on the Boulder Bach Festival’s first commercial album released in 2023. She has made concert appearances with the Fellowship of the Song at the Cincinnati Song Initiative, the Boulder Bach Festival, the Colorado Bach Ensemble, the Silesian Philharmonic, the Longmont Symphony Orchestra, and the New Hampshire Music Festival. Recent stage credits include the American premiere of George Benjamin’s Lessons in Love and Violence at the Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music, 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, and Orfeo in an adaptation of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice with Renegade Opera. She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of New Hampshire and her master’s degree and artist diploma from the University of Colorado Boulder.