ABOUT

Claire Lewis is a New York City-based symphonic and operatic conductor whose bold musical voice and compelling presence have established her as a distinctive emerging artist of her generation. She serves as the 2026-2027 Martha R. and Preston A. Peak Conducting Fellow with The Dallas Opera following her participation in the Hart Institute for Women Conductors, and recently joined the Aspen Music Festival and School as a 2026 Conducting Fellow. This season, she makes her debuts with The Dallas Opera, Annapolis Symphony Orchestra, and Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra, while returning to guest conduct the New Amsterdam Symphony and NYC Orchestra Project.

 

At the age of 19, Claire made her conducting debut at Carnegie Hall with the Chamber Orchestra of New York after winning the Respighi Prize in Conducting. Since then, she has conducted orchestras internationally including the Orchestre Métropolitain, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, and National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra. During her graduate studies, Claire was appointed as the New Haven Symphony Orchestra's Harmony Conducting Fellow and Richmond Symphony's inaugural Conducting Apprentice, and was selected for the Taki Alsop Conducting Fellowship Mentoring Program. Beyond her work on the podium, Claire is dedicated to music education and community engagement, having co-founded and served as Vice President of the nonprofit San Marcos Youth Strings, where she helped expand access to string education for young musicians in Southern California.

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Claire earned an Associate Degree in Science and Mathematics at Palomar College as the school's youngest graduate, then studied classical piano with William Wolfram at the Manhattan School of Music before earning her M.M. in Orchestral Conducting from the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, where she was mentored by Marin Alsop. Additional mentors include Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Robert Spano, and Gerard Schwarz, José-Luis Novo, and Ulrich Windfuhr.