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“An actor-singer who can raise the dramatic heat as soon as she enters the stage” (Opera Now), “that most questing, resourceful and intelligent of sopranos” (Daily Telegraph), British soprano Claire Booth has been widely acclaimed for her “radiant, rapturous, wonderfully nuanced performances” and voice of “piercing purity [and] luscious richness” (The Scotsman). Recipient of the 2025 Royal Philharmonic Society Singer of the Year Award, for “artistry that knows no bounds”, she is renowned for her breadth of repertoire, and for the vitality and musicianship that she brings to the operatic stage and concert platform; with a versatility that encompasses repertoire spanning from Monteverdi and Handel, through Rossini, Janacek and Britten, to a fearless commitment to the music of the present day.
Highlights of the 2025/26 season include a series of collaborations with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, following her acclaimed premiere of Helen Grime’s Folk last year: Ravel’s Scheherazade, an album of operatic arias from the modern British canon. Other performances include appearances at Wigmore Hall with the Nash Ensemble, a recital at the Oxford International Song Festival, Shostakovich’s Seven Romances on Poems by Alexander Blok at the Hatfield House Music Festival, Kurtag’s Kafka Fragments at the Ryedale, Two Moors and Sheffield Festivals, plus a recital at the Arnold Schönberg Center in Vienna. She performs Beckett’s Not I at the Beckett Biennale in Belfast, and at the Sheffield Chamber Music Festival where she is also guest curator.
A frequent contributor to the artistic debate and a passionate advocate for the sector, Booth recently completed an MA in Cultural Policy and Arts Management at Kings College London, with an award-winning dissertation on the relevance of Opera in English Translation. She is a course director for Britten Pears Arts’ Composition and Performance Course, vocal coach on contemporary opera at RAM and took up a Creative Fellowship post at Merton College Oxford in 2026.
