Claire Griffin is a soprano from Brevard, North Carolina in her senior year at UNCG. She is pursuing a BM in Vocal Performance and is a student of Dr. Carla LeFevre. Her operatic credits include Eurydice (Orpheus in the Underworld) with the Utah Vocal Arts Academy and Lucy (The Telephone), Adele (Die Fledermaus), Sister Genevieve (Suor Angelica), and Jenny Slade (Roman Fever) with the UNCG Opera Theatre. In March of 2022, she will sing Marie in Bedřich Smetana’s The Bartered Bride at UNCG. For Greensboro Opera’s Opera at the Carolina, Ms. Griffin has sung Lauretta (Gianni Schicchi) and Gretel (Hansel and Gretel). In 2015, Ms. Griffin originated the role of Deanna Durbin in the world premiere of Chasing Rainbows: A New Musical at the Flat Rock Playhouse. Continuing with this project in the same role, she participated in numerous NYC readings and a four-month run at the Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut, where she also understudied the role of Judy Garland. Ms. Griffin was accepted into the Janiec Opera Company at Brevard Music Center for the summer of 2020, which was unfortunately canceled due to COVID-19, where she would have sung Marzelline in Fidelio: In Concert and covered the role of Blondchen in Die Entführung aus dem Serail. She was one of 10 finalists in the Opera Grand Rapids Collegiate Vocal Competition in the spring of 2021 and was awarded First Place (Lower Collegiate Women) in the National NATS competition of 2020. Ms. Griffin was a 2018 YoungArts Winner in Voice and a Semi-Finalist for the U.S. Presidential Scholar for the Arts that same year. She will spend her 2022 summer at the Aspen Music Festival as a Studio Artist in the Opera Theatre and VocalARTS program under the co-artistic direction of Patrick Summers and Renée Fleming.

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The UNCG Symphony Orchestra is a highly select ensemble of approximately ninety performers majoring in music. Performers include undergraduates through masters and doctoral candidates in music performance and music education. Membership in the organization is highly competitive, and all students are placed by audition. Members of the Symphony have achieved numerous individual honors including solo competition awards on regional and national levels, music scholarships, undergraduate teaching fellowships, graduate assistantships and fellowships, and membership in honors ensembles.

The UNCG Symphony Orchestra periodically tours the state and region, and has recently performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and at the Stevens Center in Winston-Salem, NC. A recent review in the Classical Voice of North Carolina described the Orchestra’s performance as, “dramatic and incisive,” and “beautifully done.”

In addition to the performances of standard orchestral literature, the Symphony Orchestra collaborates annually with the UNCG choirs to present a major choral/orchestral work. Faculty, as well as winners of the annual Student Artist Competition, are often featured as soloists. The Symphony combines with the School of Music Opera Theatre and the UNCG School of Theatre to perform a fully staged opera production each spring semester. String performers who are not majoring in music are especially encouraged to participate.

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The UNCG Wind Ensemble is a highly select concert band of fifty performers majoring in music at the UNCG School of Music. Performers in the current Wind Ensemble are drawn from sixteen states, Slovenia, and Hong Kong. The ensemble has enjoyed a distinguished record of performance throughout its history. In January 1992, the UNCG Wind Ensemble performed “A Tribute to John Philip Sousa” to a capacity crowd of 2,700 at the Concert Hall of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. Twice, the Wind Ensemble earned critical acclaim from The Washington Post following concerts in the nation’s capital. The Wind Ensemble has performed throughout the eastern United States in recent years including the first-ever performance, in 1987, by a North Carolina collegiate ensemble in Lincoln Center, New York City. The Wind Ensemble performed that same year in West Virginia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C. The Wind Ensemble has recorded nineteen commercially-available albums which have received widespread praise.

In 1985, the Wind Ensemble performed a series of concerts with Pulitzer Prize-winning composer-conductor Karel Husa. In 1988, the UNCG Wind Ensemble performed in New Orleans, Louisiana by invitation of the College Band Directors National Association for the Southern Division convention. On a number of occasions, the Wind Ensemble has commissioned and premiered works from leading band composers. In November of 1990, the Wind Ensemble performed for the Southern Division of MENC convention. In February 1994, the UNCG Wind Ensemble performed for a convention of the CBDNA and NBA in Williamsburg, Virginia. In March 1999, the Wind Ensemble performed for the national convention of the American Bandmasters Association in Melbourne, Florida. In February 2000, the Wind Ensemble performed for the CBDNA Southern Division Convention hosted at UNCG. In 2006, the Wind Ensemble performed in The Music Center at Strathmore in Bethesda, Maryland, shared a concert with the United States Army Band “Pershing’s Own” in Arlington, Virginia, and collaborated with Karel Husa, David Dzubay, and Carter Pann in the performaces of their music, including two commissions. In 2009, the Wind Ensemble performed at the CBDNA National Convention at the University of Texas at Austin and performed additional concerts in Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas as part of a week-long tour. The Wind Ensemble performed at the 2011 National Convention of the American Bandmasters Association and the 2013 National Conference of the College Band Directors National Association hosted in Greensboro. Most recently, the UNCG took a twelve day concert tour through the Czech Republic, Austria, and Italy, the highlight of which was a concert in Prague’s famed Dvořák Hall.