Punjabi-Canadian mezzo-soprano Simran Claire is carving out a niche for herself in the world of classical music. A flexible and intelligent performer, Simran has appeared on stages at home and abroad, from the Royal Opera at the Château de Versailles, the Alice Busch Opera Theatre at the Glimmerglass Festival, to at home in Vancouver, BC. She is proud to represent her community in the white-domintated spaces of opera and art song. This season, Simran made her French debut as Gossip 3 and Dancer in John Corigliano’s The Ghosts of Versailles, performed in the historic Opéra Royal at the Château de Versailles and co-produced by the Glimmerglass Festival; the production was recorded and broadcast internationally on arte.tv. Back home in Vancouver, she performed as the Oberaufseherin in the Canadian premiere of Mieczysław Weinberg’s Pasażerka (UBC Opera). As a member of Vancouver Opera’s Pre-Professional Internship Program, she understudied the role of Bunny in the world premiere of Maxime Goulet’s The Flight of the Hummingbird. Simran is a graduate of the University of British Columbia (BMus 2018, MMus 2020), where she performed roles including Nicklausse in Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Angelina in La cenerentola; she is a recipient of the music faculty’s highest graduating award, the UBC Medal for Music. She was a Young Artist at the Glimmerglass Festival in 2019, where she worked with director Francesca Zambello and sang in a concert curated and hosted by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.