RBR Vocal Major Awarded All Shore Scholarship

Red Bank Regional (RBR) senior Claire Taylor of Ocean Township was recently awarded the 2019 All Shore Chorus Vocal Performance Scholarship. The All Shore Choir brings together the best of the best high school choir singers from Monmouth and Ocean Counties in New Jersey; Claire performed a solo at the group’s February 2 and 10 concerts. This was the second time that Claire made the prestigious All Shore group and this scholarship is the latest in a series of accolades the soprano operatic singer has amassed during her high school career in RBR’s Visual & Performing Arts Academy. She has also been selected to perform in the All State Chorus as well as the All State Opera; the later three times.

Last year, she was awarded the Governor’s Award as top performer in the 2018 in Opera NJ All State Opera Festival, which afforded her the honor to perform at the Governor’s Awards in Art Education last school year. That honor earned her the C. Scripps Beebee Scholarship which she utilized to attend the prestigious Oberlin Conservatory Summer Vocal Academy.

Claire has performed in many RBR theatrical shows including Fiddler on the Roof, Amadeus, and Into the Woods. Her community theatre resume includes: Brudibar/Friedl and White Bird of Poston at the Count Basie; Carousel and Guys and Dolls at the Algonquin Theatre and Midsummers Night’s Dream at the Axelrod Theatre. She has also performed solos in numerous other public venues and events.

Claire is especially grateful to the many teachers and musicians who have advised and mentored her over the years toward her dream of a career in vocal performance.

In particular, she states, “At the All State Opera, Master teacher John Hancock recommended me to Sally Wolf, a professor at Westminster College, who took me under her wing and taught me a legacy technique in operatic singing.”

Claire has excelled at RBR academically gaining admittance into the National Honor, English and Italian Honor Societies as well as the Tri-M Music Honors Society Association. She also has an interest in musical composition. Claire is also active in many other activities including Girl Scouts, and Clean Ocean Action. Last year she led and organized RBR’s participation in the National School Walkout Day in memory and in solidarity with Parkland, Fl. High school, which experienced the worst school massacre in US history.

Claire hopes to attend a music conservatory next fall where she will major in classical voice performance.