The Swedish soprano Klara Ek has a voice of remarkable clarity and beauty recognised by many of the world’s leading conductors and orchestras. This season Klara returns to Collegium Vocale Gent in a Handel Programme under Philippe Herreweghe on tour across Europe. She also joins the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra under Xian Zhang for Mahler’s Symphony No.4 and Berg’s Sieben frühe Lieder, and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg for Carmina Burana.

Klara is much in demand by the world’s principal early music ensembles. With the Academy of Ancient Music she has sung the roles of Oriana (Amadigi di Gaula) under Christopher Hogwood and Arminda (La finata giardiniera) under Richard Egarr, and she has collaborated with Pablo Heras-Casado and Compañía y Orquesta Barroca de Aranjuez in the first modern performance of Bonno’s L’isola disabitata. In addition, with Alan Curtis and Il Complesso Barocco she has recorded Jommelli’s Ezio, Scarlatti’s Tolomeo e Alessandro and Handel’s Berenice.

Notable symphonic debuts include Die Schöpfung with Washington’s National Symphony Orchestra and Helmuth Rilling, Bach’s Magnificat with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Ton Koopman, Schumann’s Szenen aus Goethes Faust with Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and Christopher Hogwood, Mahler’s Symphonies Nos.2 and 4 with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel and, most recently, her BBC Proms debut with Mahler 4 under Thomas Søndergård. She has also sung Mahler 4 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra and Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich – all under Bernard Haitink. Under Vladimir Ashkenazy she made her debuts with the NHK Symphony and Philharmonia orchestras and more recently she gave her first performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No.9 with the Hallé under Nikolaj Znaider.

On stage, Klara Ek’s most recent debuts include Rosmonda in a rare staging of Porpora’s Il Germanico in Germania for the Innsbruck Festival, Climene in Hasse’s Leucippo for Oper Koln, Despina (Così fan tutte) for Danish National Opera under Benjamin Bayl and Contessa Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro) at the Hokuptopia Festival, Japan.