OUTSTANDING mezzo-soprano Clare McCaldin has a powerful creative influence and tremendous presence both on the opera stage and concert platform, which she will be demonstrating in full at a performance in Lower Pulworthy, Highampton tonight (Thursday).

Clare’s diverse career encompasses a busy concert schedule and she has worked with pianists such as Libby Burgess, Iain Burnside, Andrew West and Paul Turner. She is committed to chamber music collaborations and has undertaken commissions with the Brodsky Quartet, Walton’s Facade, La Rejouissance and Le Page Ensemble.

In operatic repertoire she has sung a wide range of parts, including Fox (The Cunning Little Vixen), Meg Page (Falstaff), Oreste (La Belle Helene) and Dorabella Orsze (Hary Janos).

In concert, Clare has sung with the Academy of Ancient Music, Philharmonia Orchestra, Die Kölner Akademie, the Northern Sinfonia, the choir of King’s College, The Three Choirs Festival, Barokksolistene, the Orchestra of the Golden Age and the Northern Chamber Orchestra.

She made her solo debut at the 2012 BBC Proms in Debussy’s Martyrdom of St Sebastian with the BBCSO/Knussen, which also opened the 2014 Edinburgh International Festival.

Clare will be accompanied at the event, hosted by Concerts in the West, by Libby Burgess, a pianist, who is dedicated to song and chamber music.

Libby collaborates regularly with some of the finest singers and instrumentalists of her generation and is artistic director of New Paths, a major festival of concerts and education events, launched in April 2016 in Yorkshire.

Libby was an organ scholar at Christ Church, Oxford, where she took a first in music. She has won numerous prizes, as well as the DipRAM for her postgraduate accompaniment studies at the Royal College of Music.

Catherine Maddocks (Hodgson), founder and director of Concerts in the West, said: ‘Clare is a remarkable and elegant performer, who not only sings beautifully, but also draws on her impressive range of dramatic abilities to deliver superbly accomplished performances.

‘Her ability to draw audiences into the atmosphere and emotion of each song is exceptional and her natural singing voice is both controlled and accurate, demonstrating a tremendous range of pitch.’