Alison Clancy

Alison is an artist in pursuit of beauty and catharsis. She hails from the mountains of Northern California and moved to New York City with dreams of dancing and creative collaboration. Natural gifts soon landed her a place as a dancer at The Metropolitan Opera. Alongside her dance career Alison has continually written music. To quote the artist: “…most days start with ballet and end with electric guitar.”

Her most recent songs feel like a kind of breakthrough, revealing an intimacy, urgency, and lyrical depth arising from the circumstances of our time. “I am here just becoming some strange kind of love.”

In early 2020 Alison was a dance soloist for the sweeping overture of Wagner’s Der Fliegende Holländer; alone with The Met orchestra and stage magic, summoning a lightning storm and celestial ship. When The Met went dark, Alison found herself adrift. Journalist Kurt McVey, wrote of her Met solo “In many ways, her performance, a tempest, set us off like Holländer, wandering into an uncertain and precarious future... “

Amidst the chaos Alison, like so many artists through the ages, found creative refuge in a Church. McVey introduced her to Father Graeme Napier of St. John’s in the West Village. Fr. Graeme invited Alison to live on the church’s beautiful campus as an Artist in Residence. Inspired by the shimmering acoustics Alison would spend hours deep into the night composing music on electric guitar with a myriad of looping and effects pedals. It was here she wrote the hypnotic songs of her forthcoming EP Mutant Gifts and invited Brent Arnold, and the resonant warmth of his cello, to join her. The result: Mutant Gifts - Live at St. John’s.