Soprano Claudia de Lourdes Díaz Among YourClassical’s Performance Today Young Artists in Residence Program Recipients
By David Salazar(Photo Credit: Amanda Tipton)
Soprano Claudia de Lourdes Díaz was named amongst YourClassical’s Performance Today four recipients of the 2026 Young Artists in Residence program.
A native of Puerto Rico, Díaz earned a Performance Certificate in Voice Performance and a Master of Music from the Lamont School of Music at the University of Denver in 2024. In March 2025, she won first place in the Denver Lyric Opera Guild Competition and was named a Colorado-Wyoming District Winner of the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition. That same year, she made her symphonic debut with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra under Maestro Carlos Miguel Prieto and her role debut as the title character in Puccini’s “Suor Angelica” with the Lamont Opera Theater.
She is currently enrolled in the Artist Diploma in Opera Studies program at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she is preparing for her role debut as Magda Civry in Puccini’s La”Rondine.”
The three other recipients are Israeli clarinetist Elad Navon, a First Prize winner of the ARD International Clarinet Competition in Munich, currently studying at the Colburn Conservatory of Music; pianists Clayton Stephenson of the New England Conservatory, the first Black finalist at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2022 and recipient of a 2024 Avery Fisher Career Grant; and Sean Terada Yang, currently pursuing his DMA at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music.
Each artist will perform and be interviewed for nationwide broadcast on Performance Today, hosted by Valerie Kahler, and will participate in outreach to elementary and middle school students in Minnesota.
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