CLAIRE DIVIZIO (they/them) is a multi-disciplinary artist, administrator, and educator whose body of work includes stage direction, theatrical design, performance, poetry and prose, visual art, and music composition, along with administrative leadership and arts education. Claire founded Thompson Street Opera Company with the desire to create a space where singers, composers, and production personnel could take risks on truly new operas in a safe, supportive, joyful environment. TSOC boasts sold-out performances, an Honorable Mention in Chicago Classical Review’s “Best of 2019”, grant support from the Illinois Arts Council and City of Chicago, and an ever-expanding roster of exceptional and diverse artists. Since 2022, Claire has been a member of the faculty at Northeastern Illinois University’s School of Music, where they empower students to take ownership of their performing and make the kind of art that fulfills them as individuals. In the fall of 2024, Claire will lead Opera Workshop, Class Voice, and a full studio of private voice students, as well as teaching a course of their own design about the political history of censorship of music.

Claire is also a performer, writer, and baker! Over the last ten years, they’ve been seen onstage across the US in opera, concert, recital, musical theatre, and drag, and have been a member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Chorus since 2016 (tenured since 2018). Claire’s return to the CSO chorus this year makes them the first trans singer in the US to successfully return to a union classical ensemble in a different voice part following HRT. Claire’s writing has been set to music in both art song and opera, and their long history with contemporary vocal music has expanded in the last few years to include music composition. Their first complete opera (Requiem for Five: a comedy), co-written with composer Jaz Thomasian, was premiered at Chicago Opera On Tap’s Halloween Spooktacular in 2021. Outside of music, Claire can usually be found in the kitchen covered in flour.