2011 ARIAS: Emerging Young Artist Award

photo credit to Lisa-Marie Mazzucco

"Or sai chi l'onore"
from
Don Giovanni
by W. A. Mozart

Layla Claire, soprano

Soprano Layla Claire’s “penetrating purity” (New York Times) has quickly made her a sought-after artist on the world’s preeminent operatic, symphonic and recital stages. Praised for thoughtful characterizations and exquisite musicality, her interpretations of Mozart’s heroines have garnered accolades throughout North America and Europe. In 2010 she became the inaugural recipient of the Hildegard Behrens Foundation Award, an honor she is immensely proud to receive, once again, this season.

Following July 2011 performances of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis and Symphony No. 9 under the baton of Yannick Nézet-Séguin at the Festival de Lanaudière and four concerts as a featured artist in the Met’s Summer Recital Series, Layla Claire performed at the Tanglewood and Manchester Music Festivals before beginning a robust fall schedule. In October, she makes her New York recital debut at Carnegie Hall, just one of many significant firsts in the 2011-12 season including debuts with the Dallas, Toronto, Baltimore and Kansas City symphonies as well as the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra. In December she creates the role of Helena in the Metropolitan Opera’s star-studded Baroque pastiche The Enchanted Island conducted by William Christie. In March 2012 she reprises her first operatic role, this time on the Met stage, as Gianetta in Donizetti’s L’Elisir D’Amore. Returning to Symphony Hall in April 2012, she performs Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Bernard Haitink.

Recent engagements include her Metropolitan Opera debut as Tebaldo in Verdi’s Don Carlo conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, her portrayal of Marenka in Smetana’s The Bartered Bride under the baton of James Levine and debuts with the Boston, San Francisco and Norrkoping (Sweden) symphonies as well as the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra.

In 2008 she received the Mozart Prize at the Wilhelm Stenhammar International Music Competition, the Prix des amis d’Aix-en-Provence for best Mozart performance and was a Queen Elisabeth Competition Laureate. She is a Radio-Canada Jeunes Artistes recital winner, the 2005 E-Gré Competition winner, Jean A. Chalmers Award and George London prize recipient, a recipient of J. Desmarais Foundation Bursaries and a proud recipient of a Canada Council Grant. She studied at l’Université de Montréal before attending the Curtis Institute of Music.