Much in demand particularly for her interpretations of Bach, Clare Wilkinson has sung in the Wigmore Hall, the Concertgebouw, the Royal Albert Hall, Theatre des Champs Elysées and the Lincoln Center. 

Born in Manchester into a family of musicians, Clare gave her first professional concert at the age of 17 with Musica Antiqua of London. She went on to read Classics with a choral scholarship at Trinity College, Cambridge, followed by postgraduate vocal studies at Trinity College of Music, London, where she won numerous prizes. 

 

In 2004 Clare worked for the first time with John Eliot Gardiner, and has since performed all the major works of Bach, and much other repertoire, under his baton. Another recent highlight has been a pair of Bach projects with Andrew Parrott - the Christmas Oratorio and a recording of Parrott’s own reconstruction of the St Mark Passion. Amongst others, Clare has also sung for Christophe Rousset, Daniel Reuss, Nicolas Kraemer, John Butt, Michael Willens and Laurence Cummings. This year she will make her debut with Bart van Reyn/Octopus Barokorkest, Richard Egarr/SCO and Charles Olivieri-Munroe/Israel Camerata. Equally at home with a consort of viols, she appears regularly with Fretwork and The Rose Consort of Viols. 

 

Clare also enjoys staged work; she is a member of I Fagiolini and was part of their ground-breaking ‘secret theatre’ project The Full Monteverdi. Other roles include Messagiera in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, Venere in Monteverdi’s Ballo dell’Ingrate, Galatea in both Handel’s Acis and Galatea and also his Aci, Galatea e Polifemo, Second Witch in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Zinnia in Chabrier’s L’Etoile and Penelope in Guido Morini’s Odissea. She will reprise Second Witch for Dijon Opera this year. 

 

Perhaps most notable of her numerous CDs are the Gramophone award-winning Messiah and the St Matthew Passion with The Dunedin Consort, the St Mark Passion with Amarcord/Kölner Akademie, the critically acclaimed Four Gentlemen of the Chapel Royal with the Rose Consort of Viols and The Silken Tent with Fretwork. For more information please visit www.clarewilkinsonmezzo.co.uk