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The American mezzo-soprano, Clare McNamara, obtained her Bachelor of Arts degree in Music from Princeton University (2001-2006); and her Master of Music degree in Early Music Performance from Longy School of Music of Bard College (2011-2013).
Praised for her “lushly evocative mezzo” and “attentive and precise” musicianship, Clare McNamara brings her signature vocal quality and sensitive interpretation to a wide variety of repertoire throughout the USA and abroad. The 2018 recipient of the prestigious St. Botolph Emerging Artist Award, she has performed at Carnegie Hall, Boston’s Symphony Hall, and Tanglewood’s Seiji Ozawa Hall, among other world-renowned venues. Though particularly adept at early and new music, her unique instrument is suited to many kinds of repertoire and is only growing in versatility.
Recently, Clare McNamara made her solo debut at Symphony Hall in Handel and Haydn Society's 2018 performance of J.S. Bach's Mass in B Minor (BWV 232), under the baton of Harry Christophers, and returned later in the year as alto soloist in J.S. Bach’s Missa Brevis in G major (BWV 236). Boston Classical Review praised her “rich timbre and expressive phrasing,” calling her duet with soprano Sarah Yanovitch the “vocal highlight of the second half.” She also made her New York City solo debut as alto soloist in George Frideric Handel’s Messiah with Daniel Hyde and the Choristers of New York’s St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue. She performed the role of Brängane in the 2017 and 2018 revival performances of Boston Camerata’s medieval pastiche, Tristan & Iseult. Other recent soloist credits include the role of Mother in Stephen Paulus' modern church opera The Three Hermits (Harvard University Choir) and alto soloist in oratorio with organizations such as Coro Allegro, The Boston Cecilia, and the Tufts University Choirs.
Clare McNamara was a core member of Lorelei Ensemble, Boston’s groundbreaking 9-voice women’s vocal ensemble, from 2011 to 2020. Lorelei’s recent album “Impermanence” has garnered attention as one of the best classical albums of 2018 (WQXR) and has received glowing reviews from Gramophone Magazine and the BBC. Throughout the years, Clare’s solo turns with Lorelei have been called “gorgeous” (ArtsFuse) and “exquisite” (Boston Musical Intelligencer). In 2017, she made her Carnegie Hall debut as part of Lorelei when the ensemble joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Andris Nelsons as the octet of voices featured in George Benjamin’s The Dream of the Song. Clare and Lorelei also appeared in Tanglewood's 2016 and 2017 Festival of Contemporary Music for performances of Benjamin's work as well as György Ligeti's Clocks and Clouds. In the coming season, Lorelei will maintain a busy touring schedule under the new management of David Middleton (A Far Cry), return to the Boston Symphony Orchestra in a concert performance of Suor Angelica, and collaborate with A Fary Cry on a new work by Kareem Roustom based on the stories of the women in The Odyssey, slated to premiere in 2019. The ensemble has also been invited to be one of three ensembles featured at the National ACDA Convention in Kansas City in February 2019.
Clare McNamara is now in her 6th season (since 2014) as an active member of the performing roster of the prestigious Handel and Haydn Society in Boston, appearing this season in several concerts, including The Great Bach Concertos and Cantatas, W.A. Mozart’s Requiem, and Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, which will be performed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Temple of Dendur in March 2019. Clare is proud to be singing in the Handel and Haydn Society “Every Voice” program for the second year in a row. This community and social justice-oriented concert is curated by counter-tenor Reginald Mobley features young members of the Handel and Haydn SocietyVocal Arts Program Choir alongside members of the Handel and Haydn Society orchestra and chorus and features repertoire from the Baroque to the American spiritual.
Also a core member of the GRAMMY-nominated Skylark Vocal Ensemble since 2012, Clare McNamara has appeared with the ensemble in various performances, including a Rachmaninoff Vespers at Spivey Hall at Clayton State University (Morrow, Georgia) and a Spring 2017 tour of Francis Poulenc’s notoriously difficult choral cantata Figure Humaine. Last season, she traveled to London with Skylark to perform their GRAMMY-nominated “Seven Words from the Cross” at the 2018 Holy Week Festival hosted by the British ensemble Tenebrae.
Internationally, Clare McNamara has performed frequently with Cut Circle (since 2014), an American early music group dedicated to recapturing the gritty, intense experience of singing early music. She recently joined Cut Circle as part of the Utrecht Early Music concert series in Utrecht, Delft, Zwolle, Maastricht, and Amsterdam, and also performed with the group in Berkeley and Stanford, California in collaboration with San Francisco Early Music Society and Stanford Live in February 2019. She made her European debut with Cut Circle performing at the Musica Sacra Festival in Maastricht, Netherlands, and has also joined the group at the AMUZ/Laus Polyphoniae 2015 Festival-Conference in Antwerp, Belgium, and the Tage Alter Music Festival in Regensburg, Germany. Recently, she and her fellow musicians served as professional science guinea pigs at the Max-Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt Germany, donning electro-encephalogram helmets designed to measure activity in the singer’s brain. She is working with Cut Circle on an ongoing recording project of Ockeghem’s songs and music from the Leuven Chansonnier.
Clare McNamara joined Staunton Music Festival’s summer festival for W.A. Mozart’s Requiem in summer 2018 and returned for the entirety of the August 2019 festival. In addition, she maintains ensemble affiliations with the Boston Camerata, The Thirteen, Peregrine Consort, Colla Parte, Tapestry, and other groups throughout the USA.
In the recording studio, Clare McNamara provided solo vocals for On the Nature of Things commissioned by the internationally-recognized modern dance troupe Pilobolus Dance Theatre from composers Michelle DiBucci and Ed Bilous; Pilobolus maintains this work as a regular centerpiece of their active performance repertoire. With Skylark Vocal Ensemble, she is a featured soloist on two highly acclaimed new albums: "Winter’s Night" and the twice-GRAMMY-nominated "Seven Words from the Cross" (Sono Luminus: Best Choral Performance, Best Immersive Audio Album). Reviewing "Seven Words from the Cross", BBC Record Review wrote, “The ensemble is excellent, the solos beautifully taken, and the whole sequence is thoughtfully designed and luminously recorded.” Along with Skylark, she can also be heard on “forgotten dreams” and “Crossing Over” (Sono Luminus). She has been a part of three Lorelei recordings: “Impermanence,” which features all-female recordings of Dufay and other Renaissance polyphony; “live.know.love”; and “Reconstructed”, which features new Americana pieces.
In recent years, Clare McNamara has developed a fascination with the music of Hildegard von Bingen. She routinely prepares transcriptions of her work and provides performance coaching in order to align performances with the nuances of the original neumatic notation. In addition to frequently performing Hildegard with Lorelei, Skylark, andStaunton, Clare has sung the role of Humilitas in her Ordo Virtutum (Ensemble Musica Humana).
The 2020-2021 season would have blossomed with solo opportunities: The Boston Camerata’s “A Night’s Tale” and “Three Sisters” (Anne Azéma), and G.F. Handel’s Dixit Dominus and Israel in Egypt with Handel and Haydn Society (Director: Harry Christophers). Clare would have debuted with TENET (Director: Jolle Greenleaf) and Washington Bach. The 2021-2022 season marks a gentle return to performance and studio recording, including Skylark’s choral retelling of “A Christmas Carol” by Benedict Sheehan, and “Sub Rosa” by brothers and author-composer duo Dan and Greg Brown.
Clare McNamara rapidly pivoted to digital music creation during the pandemic. She recorded a solo recital and a program of women’s trios for Skylark’s digital subscription platform, Skylark+; she also co-founded a new vocal trio, Ourania (2020). In January, 2021, Clare appeared as the vocal soloist (works by Michelle DiBucci and Gustav Mahler) for the United Nations’ Chamber Music Society’s concert for the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust, which was globally broadcast on the UN’s YouTube Channel and on Facebook. Clare McNamara currently resides in Boston. |
