Claire Happel Ashe performs, teaches, and creates programs in music and movement, integrating historical and contemporary performance with somatics to find deeper beauty, connection, and nuanced understanding. Her work spans orchestral, historical, contemporary, and folk traditions on the harp, as well as dance, developmental movement, and somatic practices, particularly the Alexander Technique.

Her playing on the harp has been described as “sensitive but sharply focused” (Avant Music News) and possessing “mesmerizing perfection” (Harp Column). She has performed with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional of the Dominican Republic, among many others, and has appeared as a soloist with the Quincy Symphony Orchestra, Artemis Chamber Orchestra, and University of Illinois Philharmonia. She was an Associate Harpist with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago from 2009–2015 and considers Sarah Bullen an important mentor.

Claire's work as a historical harpist has focused on the Baroque triple harp. She frequently performs continuo for music of early modern Italy, England, and New Spain, and has appeared on the Early Music at the Colby Barn Series, WFMT Chicago, and with Trio Speranza, Concerto Urbano, EnsAmble Ad-Hoc, Haymarket Opera, and the Newberry Consort. She recently appeared on the recording A Mexican Christmas. Her historical performance teachers on harp and continuo include Cheryl Ann Fulton, Charlotte Mattax Moersch, and Christa Patton through the Madison Early Music Festival and Queens College Early Opera Workshop. Since 2022, she has also studied Paraguayan harp and Latin American folk traditions with Daniel Rojas through the Illinois Arts Council Ethnic and Folk Arts Master Artist Apprentice Program.

Movement has been equally central to Claire's artistic point of view. As a young adult, she immersed herself in dance, choreography, and somatic practices through summer programs and a BFA in Dance at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She performed in the work of choreographers including Rebecca Nettl-Fiol, Laura Chiaramonte, Jessica Ray, Luc Vanier, Sara Hook, Mary Barnett, Kathryn Kollar, David Parker, David Neumann, and Nicholas Leichter, as well as in Baroque dance performances with Philip Johnston. While a graduate student at Yale, she founded Yale Movement Improvisation and Composition, producing a concert of student work, GalleryDance.

While at the University of Illinois, she was introduced to the Alexander Technique and developmental movement patterns, specifically the double-spiral pattern that underlies coordinated skill. Her doctoral research, supported by a P.E.O. Scholar Award, explored applications of the Alexander Technique and developmental movement to harp performance. Her perspective on developmental movement is informed by the work of anatomists and physicians including Raymond Dart and James Kenneth McConnell, as interpreted through the teaching of Joan and Alex Murray, Rebecca Nettl-Fiol, and Luc Vanier. Raymond Dart's maxim that “you can only look forward as far as you look back” captures a central principle underlying her approach to both movement and harp performance and teaching.

Claire has written articles related to her doctoral work for the American Harp Journal and the forthcoming book The Dance of Everyday Movement: A Framework for Integration. She has presented, demonstrated, and guest taught Alexander Technique at the World Harp Congress in Dublin, the Alexander Technique Congress in Chicago, Lyon & Healy's Harp Day, the University of Arizona, Illinois Summer Youth Music, and Roosevelt University's Alexander Technique Day. She served as an Alexander Technique Instructor at Valparaiso University from 2016–2021 and has assisted classes in theater, dance, and music at the University of Illinois and the Music in the Mountains Festival. She organized the 2023 Macomb Alexander Technique Series. Her Alexander Technique teaching emphasizes three interconnected ideas: that coordination and poise are the embodiment of attention and intention; that becoming aware of interference with underlying patterns is more important than learning new patterns; and that all coordinated skill is supported by three-dimensional, dynamic double-spiral patterns.

Stemming from her teenage love of contemporary art and modern dance, Claire has also performed many new works in music with ensembles including the Chicago Composers Orchestra, International Ensemble Modern Academy, Ostavská Banda, and the Berg Orchestra, as well as on the Pulitzer Series of St. Louis curated by David Robertson. She has commissioned and premiered works with bassist Philip Alejo (River Town Duo), oboist Karisa Antonio (Immer Neu), and guitarists James Moore and Jeremy Harting (Noble Fowl Trio), with support from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, Illinois Arts Council, and Urbana Arts & Culture Program. Her premieres include works by composers including Caroline Shaw, Stephen Andrew Taylor, Han Lash, Douglas Fisk, Lainie Fefferman, Nomi Epstein, James Moore, Zacbe Picardo, Alfredo Rolando Ortiz, Andres Martin, Miroslav Srnka, Jana Vöröšová, Evan Premo, Frederick Evans, Griffin Candey, and Whitney Ashe. Her River Town Duo recording For Claire and Philip, featuring commissioned American works for bass and harp, was released by Furious Artisan Records in 2021.

She currently teaches harp, Alexander Technique, and movement in Macomb, Illinois. Her approaches to teaching include Dalcroze, Suzuki, and Creative Movement for Children through Laban Movement Analysis. Previously, she served on the faculty of the University of Notre Dame, Music Institute of Chicago, Valparaiso University, Saint Mary's College, Olivet Nazarene University, and Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, and taught as a teaching assistant at Yale University and the University of Illinois. In addition to her performing and teaching, she serves as Program Manager at the Western Illinois Museum, where she develops humanities and arts programs.

Claire holds degrees in harp performance from Yale University, where she studied with June Han, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she studied with Ann Yeung and also received a BFA in Dance and DMA cognates in Dance and Historical Performance Practice. In 2007–08, she studied in Prague with harpist Jana Boušková as a Fulbright Scholar. She has also participated in the Aspen Music Festival, Festival MusicAlp, International Ensemble Modern Academy, Round Top Music Festival-Institute, Hot Springs Music Festival, and Saratoga Harp Colony, among others, and presented at the Midwest Harp Festival, American Harp Society Conferences and Institutes in Chicago, Logan (UT), and Tacoma (WA), the International Society of Bassists Convention in Fort Collins (CO), and Michigan State University’s Harp Day.

Originally from Quincy, Illinois, Claire was introduced to music and movement through the public schools and the teaching of dedicated artists Sarama Schnack and Beth Heinze. She now lives in Macomb with her husband, jazz pianist-composer Whitney Ashe, and their sons, Sawyer and Henry. In 2009, she produced stories (click here!) for public radio as a 2009 Arts Desk intern at NPR headquarters in Washington, DC.