English mezzo-soprano Clare Wilkinson is the daughter of conductor Stephen Wilkinson, and she was raised in a musical family in Manchester. She performed with Musica Antiqua of London at age 17, making her debut at the invitation of viol player Alison Crum. Wilkinson attended Trinity College, Cambridge, and pursued postgraduate studies in voice at Trinity College of Music in London, where she studied with Hazel Wood. Wilkinson began working with John Eliot Gardiner in 2004, and she has sung with the English Baroque Soloists in choral works of Bach, Handel, and Purcell. She has also performed with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the English Concert, Les Talens Lyriques, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the Netherlands Bach Society, the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, the Parley of Instruments, the New London Consort, the Dunedin Consort, the Gürzenich-Orchester Köln, and the Hanover Band, among many other ensembles. Wilkinson has also performed with the viol consorts Fretwork and the Rose Consort of Viols. She has appeared in operas by Monteverdi, Purcell, and Handel, and, as a member of the vocal group I Fagiolini, she participated in John La Bouchardière's project The Full Monteverdi, based on madrigals by Monteverdi, and Henk Schut's Tallis in Wonderland. Wilkinson has recorded for Signum Classics, Channel Classics, Delphian, Deux-Elles, and Cypres.