Ms. Claycomb has been highly acclaimed for her performance of roles in the bel canto repertoire as well as for her appearances in the Baroque and modern repertoire. Audiences first heard her at San Francisco Opera where she held an Adler fellowship, singing roles such as Xenia in Boris Godonov, Papagena in Die Zauberfloete, Duchesse Medina-Sidonia in Milhaud's Christoph Colombe, Marie in La fille du régiment and Fiakermilli in Arabella. Audiences in Italy first heard her as Marie at Turin's Teatro Regio in Luca Ronconi's production and again as Ismene in Graham Vick's production of Mitridate, re di Ponto. After Ms. Claycomb's debut at La Scala, Milan in the title role of Linda di Chamounix, she followed with another Marie in Rome and her first Sophie in Keith Warner's production of Der Rosenkavalier at the Spoleto Festival. Other appearances include her critically-acclaimed debut at L'Opera de Lausanne as Comtesse Adele in Le Comte Ory, Adina in L'Elisir d'amore and Gilda in Rigoletto. Gilda has become a signature role for her, bowing at the Paris Bastille, for her debuts at ABAO in Bilbao, in Santiago de Chile, and at New Israeli Opera. Also at NIO, she had a notable success with her role debut in David Pountney's production of Lucia di Lammermoor. Recently, Ms. Claycomb had rave response for her debut as Olympia in David McVicar's production of Les Contes d'Hoffmann at the Vlaamse Opera. In the US, she bowed at the Glimmerglass Festival as Norina in a new production of Don Pasquale which she reprised at New York City Opera the following year. In Washington, D.C., she sang Serpetta in Mozart's La finta giardiniera at the Kennedy Center. In France, she has also sung Princess Rezia in Haydn's L'Incontro Improvviso for L'Opera de Nice and L'Opera de Bordeaux. With Baroque conductor Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques, she has sung Cleopatra in Handel's Giulio Cesare in Montpellier and Drusilla in Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea at the Netherlands Opera. In the realm of more modern music, Ms. Claycomb made her debut at the Salzburg Festival in Peter Sellar's new production of Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre, reprising the role of Amanda in the same production at the Paris Châtelet. She can be heard on the Grammy-nominated recording of Le Grand Macabre for Sony. Concerts of Copland's The Tender Land (role debut as Laurie Moss), The Rake's Progress (role debut as Ann Truelove) at the Barbican, and Mistress Page in Vaughan-Williams' Sir John in Love are some recent highlights of her operatic collaboration with conductor Richard Hickox.

She has collaborated with such conductors as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Bruno Campanella, Patrick Summers, Evelino Pidò, Jonathan Darlington, Kent Nagano, Christophe Rousset, Stefano Ranzani, Donald Runnicles, Richard Hickox, Ivan Fischer, David Parry and stage directors Peter Sellars, Robert Carsen, David McVicar, Keith Warner, Luca Ronconi, David Pountney, Pierre Audi, Lotfi Mansouri, Mark Lamos and John Copley.

Concert appearances include a stunning Haydn Creation at the Spoleto Festival and Handel's Messiah with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, both with Hickox. She sang the world-premiere of Esa-Pekka Salonen's Five Fragments After Sappho with the composer conducting at the Ojai Festival, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in Los Angeles and with the London Sinfonietta at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. She reprised the Sappho songs with Ensemble Modern in Japan on a program including Stravinsky's Japanese Lyrics and Balmont Songs. Also with Salonen, the soprano has sung Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream with the L.A. Philharmonic, and Debussy's Le Martyre de St. Sebastien (Angel) with the Swedish Radio Orchestra. Her collaboration with Hickox also includes Grainger at the Aldeburgh Festival and BBC Proms, and Vaughan-Williams' A Sea Symphony at the Gulbenkian in Lisbon. In London, Ms. Claycomb sang a Mozart program including Der Schauspieldirektor with Ivan Fischer and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, which was broadcast on BBC Radio. On another all-Mozart program in Switzerland, Claycomb was the feature, singing a program of 6 concert arias with the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne and conductor Jonathan Darlington. She also reprised Giulietta in a concert version of I Capuleti e I Montecchi with Roberto Abbado and Sinfonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks in Munich. Ms. Claycomb was featured in a Schwabacher Debut Recital, an Old First recital with guitarist Marc Teicholz, the Poulenc Gloria and Faurè Requiem at Davies Symphony Hall, as well as concerts with chamber ensemble in San Francisco.

A native of Dallas, Texas, Claycomb studied with Barbara Hill Moore at Southern Methodist University, where she earned two Bachelor's Degrees, in Foreign Languages and Vocal Performance. She was the youngest singer to take part in the San Francisco Opera Center's Merola Program in 1989, and in 1990 Ms. Claycomb won the Cenacolo Award at Merola Grand Finals. She was chosen for an Adler Fellowship with San Francisco Opera, which from 1991 until 1994 saw her performing and covering numerous roles. Ms. Claycomb won the Silver Medal at the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1994, the Operetta Prize at the Belvedere Competition in Vienna in 1992 and First Prize in the National Opera Association Competition in 1992. She was also a national finalist in the Metropolitan Opera Competition. She currently studies with Norma Newton.

Future engagements include Gilda in Houston, Ginevra in Ariodante at L'Opera Garnier in Paris, Cleopatra at the Drottningholm Festival, Five Fragments After Sappho at Carnegie Hall (Weill), Fedra in Traetta's Ippolito ed Aricia in Montpellier, duet concerts with Derek Lee Ragin and Emmanuelle Haim and Gretel with the London Symphony Orchestra.