Even Keel Photography for Wild Up
GRAMMY-nominated oboist Claire Chenette has been principal oboe with the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra since 2014. Additionally, Claire performs in diverse settings as a member of the Des Moines Metro Opera, Wildup modern music collective, and Nief Norf ensemble. Claire has been a regular guest with the San Diego, Pacific, and Chattanooga Symphonies and the Los Angeles and Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestras, among others. She has performed as concerto soloist with the Knoxville Symphony Chamber Orchestra, the Breckenridge Music Festival Orchestra, and the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble. As a recording artist, Claire has appeared on many film and TV scores and has credits as both performer and songwriter with her bands Bearcubes and Three Thirds. Her recording with Wildup, “The Pieces that Fall to the Earth,” was nominated for a 2019 GRAMMY award in the best chamber music/small ensemble performance category.
An advocate for new music, Claire has been featured on the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella Series, the New York Philharmonic’s Biennial Festival, the Lucerne Festival, and the Ojai Festival; and at institutions such as Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Museum, Disney Hall, and Salle Pleyel Paris. Claire has devoted herself to performing contemporary solo repertoire, including many memorized performances of Berio’s iconic Sequenza VII/Chemins IV, and to premiering new works for the oboe. She spent four summers at the Lucerne Music Festival in Switzerland under the direction of Pierre Boulez, Simon Rattle, and Heinz Holliger, and has been in residence at the Breckenridge, Spoleto, Bang on a Can, and Aspen summer festivals.
Claire holds an MFA in performance from California Institute of the Arts and two bachelors degrees in oboe and religious studies (with a focus in Islamic mysticism) from Oberlin. She is on faculty at the Nief Norf Summer Festival, is interim professor of oboe at East Tennessee State University, and teaches a studio of private students in Knoxville.
In addition to her musical career, Claire is a visual artist who works with ceramics, paint, textiles, and graphic design. Claire has a penchant for portraiture, satire, and the elevation of the mundane. Claire has designed album artwork, product labels, and textiles for a variety of creative projects including creating Academic Tarot, an original 22-card major arcana tarot deck. She is resident artist of the Visionary Futures Collective, a group of humanists who came together at the start of the coronavirus pandemic to address systemic inequality in the field of higher education. Visit her shop for more!
In her free time, Claire enjoys growing vegetables, volunteering with local farms that fight food disparity, brewing beer, listening to and playing folk music, and bicycling. She recently co-wrote the film score for the 2018 IndieMemphis-IndieGrant-winning rock musical “Space Submarine Commander,” and is a certified Knox County Master Gardener.
An advocate for new music, Claire has been featured on the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Green Umbrella Series, the New York Philharmonic’s Biennial Festival, the Lucerne Festival, and the Ojai Festival; and at institutions such as Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Museum, Disney Hall, and Salle Pleyel Paris. Claire has devoted herself to performing contemporary solo repertoire, including many memorized performances of Berio’s iconic Sequenza VII/Chemins IV, and to premiering new works for the oboe. She spent four summers at the Lucerne Music Festival in Switzerland under the direction of Pierre Boulez, Simon Rattle, and Heinz Holliger, and has been in residence at the Breckenridge, Spoleto, Bang on a Can, and Aspen summer festivals.
Claire holds an MFA in performance from California Institute of the Arts and two bachelors degrees in oboe and religious studies (with a focus in Islamic mysticism) from Oberlin. She is on faculty at the Nief Norf Summer Festival, is interim professor of oboe at East Tennessee State University, and teaches a studio of private students in Knoxville.
In addition to her musical career, Claire is a visual artist who works with ceramics, paint, textiles, and graphic design. Claire has a penchant for portraiture, satire, and the elevation of the mundane. Claire has designed album artwork, product labels, and textiles for a variety of creative projects including creating Academic Tarot, an original 22-card major arcana tarot deck. She is resident artist of the Visionary Futures Collective, a group of humanists who came together at the start of the coronavirus pandemic to address systemic inequality in the field of higher education. Visit her shop for more!
In her free time, Claire enjoys growing vegetables, volunteering with local farms that fight food disparity, brewing beer, listening to and playing folk music, and bicycling. She recently co-wrote the film score for the 2018 IndieMemphis-IndieGrant-winning rock musical “Space Submarine Commander,” and is a certified Knox County Master Gardener.
