[2] A graduate of Highland Park High School,[3] Claycomb won a full scholarship to Southern Methodist University,[4] where she studied voice with Barbara Hill Moore, and completed two bachelor's degrees in vocal performance and foreign languages.
[citation needed] Her Lucia di Lammermoor at the Houston Grand Opera "literally catapulted the opening night audience to its feet with her creativity and versatility."
[11] She got her start at San Francisco Opera where she held an Adler Fellowship, singing roles such as Xenia in Boris Godunov, Papagena in Die Zauberflöte, Duchesse Medina-Sidonia in Milhaud's Christoph Colombe, Marie in La fille du régiment and Fiakermilli in Arabella.
[citation needed] After her debut at La Scala in the title role of Linda di Chamounix with Marcelo Álvarez, she sang Marie in Rome and her first Sophie in Keith Warner's production of Der Rosenkavalier at the Spoleto Festival in Italy.
She reprised the role of Cleopatra for the Drottningholm Festival with Roy Goodman conducting and more recently at Houston Grand Opera with music director Patrick Summers.
[citation needed] Claycomb also has a close relationship with Baroque conductor Emmanuelle Haïm, and performed a varied French and Italian Baroque repertoire with Haïm on tour in the United States (St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and New World Symphony) and with her group Le Concert d'Astrée at the Aldeburgh Festival, in Paris, on tour in France, on BBC Radio.
[18] In 2015, Claycomb created the role of Hester Prynne in world premiere of Lori Laitman's The Scarlet Letter at Opera Colorado as well as singing Leonard Bernstein's Kaddish (Symphony No.
[citation needed] She was the soprano soloist in Carmina Burana at the re-opening gala of the Blossom Festival with the Cleveland Orchestra with Franz Welser-Möst conducting, again in the Messiah again with Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall, returned with Pierre Boulez for the title role of Stravinsky's Rossignol and with Matthias Pintscher in Debussy's Le Martyr de St. Sebastien.
With Sir Roger Norrington and the Stuttgart Radio Orchestra, Claycomb has made tours as Teresa in Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini (recorded for Hanssler Classics) and as the soprano soloist in Vaughan Williams' A Sea Symphony.
She joined the LSO for Mahler's fourth symphony with Valery Gergiev in London and Athens, and in 2017, sang Bernstein's Kaddish with the orchestra and Marin Alsop.
[21] In London's Royal Albert Hall, she sang a Mozart program including Der Schauspieldirektor with Iván Fischer and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, which was also broadcast on BBC Radio.
She appeared as Madame Silberklang in Der Schauspieldirektor with the Munich Radio Orchestra and Sebastian Weigle, and another Mozart concert with Ulf Schirmer.