Claire Forstman is a pianist and vocal coach currently based in Portland, Oregon, where she is a member of the Resident Artist studio at Portland Opera for the ’23-’24 season. Passionate about contemporary opera, she will work as music staff this season for Portland Opera’s production of Joel Thompson’s The Snowy Day and their workshop of DJ King Rico and Will Liverman’s The Factotum. Past seasons included work on Missy Mazzoli’s Proving Up (Opera Steamboat), the premiere of Whitney George’s Fizz & Ginger (The Curiosity Cabinet), the first workshop of Leanna Kirchoff’s Welcome to the Madness (Opera Steamboat), the premiere of a new arrangement of Così fan tutte by composer Nicolas Benavides and librettist Kelly Rourke (Florentine Opera), and the premieres of Carla Lucero’s Juana (dell’Arte Opera Ensemble), George’s Julie (New Camerata Opera) and Princess Maleine (dell’Arte), and Andrea Clearfield’s Mila, Great Sorcerer (Prototype Festival).
In the traditional operatic repertoire, she will play and coach this season for Portland Opera’s production of Le Nozze di Figaro, and the company’s Puccini: In Concert. Past seasons have included Rigoletto (Florentine), Massenet’s Cendrillon (Chicago Summer Opera), L’enfant et les sortilèges (Florentine), La bohème (Florentine), Gianni Schicchi (Opera Steamboat), Roméo et Juliette (Florentine), Agrippina (CSO), and Il barbiere di Siviglia (Florentine; Finger Lakes Opera), among others. She has held studio residencies at the Florentine Opera (’21-’23), Opera Steamboat (’23), and Finger Lakes Opera (’21) and coached at Chicago Summer Opera (’23, ’22), dell’Arte Opera Ensemble (’22, ’20, ’19), and Sarah Lawrence College (’19-’21).
Active as a chamber musician, she has performed regularly with flutist Jennifer Burke and trumpeter Alec Burke as Microcosm Ensemble in Milwaukee. Microcosm has performed at the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Museum of Wisconsin Art, and in collaboration with Milwaukee’s modern dance company, Danceworks. In 2022, the trio commissioned and premiered a new work from composer Erika Malpass, to find beauty in surviving our emotions. In New York, Claire has performed extensively with the modular ensemble The Curiosity Cabinet and notably with The Orchestra Now at Carnegie Hall and the Fisher Center under the baton of Leon Botstein. Her studio recording work with these ensembles can be heard on Buried Alive (Bridge Records), For You (Pinch Records), and Solitude and Secrecy (Pinch Records).
Claire also enjoys accompanying dance and plays this season for the Oregon Ballet Theatre School in Portland. Previously, she worked as a class pianist for the Milwaukee Ballet School and Academy in the ’22-’23 season. She earned her M.M. in Contemporary Performance from the Manhattan School of Music and a B.M. in Piano Performance from the Eastman School of Music.