Claire Cross

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Claire Cross is a Berlin-based Australian electric bassist and composer. She is an emerging proponent of the unique lineage of “guitaristic” bass players, who are expanding the compositional possibilities of the instrument and challenging the traditional role of the electric bassist.

Having completed her Master of Music in Jazz Arranging/Composition at the Jazz Institut Berlin, Universität der Künste, in 2024, she has gone on to perform at the iconic Maxim Gorki Theatre in Berlin as part of the acclaimed production Unser Deutschlandmärchen, which was selected as one of ten productions to be featured at Theater Treffen in Berlin in 2025.

In 2026, Claire is a recipient of the sought-after Elsa Neumann Stipend, awarded to high-achieving graduates to focus on a proposed artistic project.

She has released four albums. Her recent album Sleep Cycle, released by the label Art as Catharsis, was nominated for an APRA Art Music Award for Best Jazz Work in 2025, debuted at #10 on the ARIA Jazz & Blues Charts, and reached #13 on the AIR 100% Independent Album Charts in May 2024.

Her collaborative 2023 album Dialect, with pianist Harry Cook, was released on the Australian label ABC Jazz and has received over 450,000 streams on Spotify to date. In 2025, the duo were invited to undertake an artistic residency and perform at the Arvo Pärt Centre in Estonia.

Her 2022 album Into Light was nominated for a Music Victoria Award in the Best Jazz Work category, was feature album of the week on ABC Jazz in June 2022, and received a four-star review in the major national newspaper The Australian.

In 2019, Claire was the inaugural recipient of the Melbourne International Jazz Festival’s Take Note program, through which she was commissioned to premiere Into Light. She also received the 2018 Melbourne Women’s International Jazz Festival Recording Prize for her project Moving Targets. She was nominated as a finalist for the APRA AMCOS Professional Development Award in 2022 and 2023.

Claire has also forged an impressive emerging career as a session bassist, performing alongside some of Australia’s most iconic artists in concerts including Her Sound, Her Story during Melbourne Music Week in 2016 and Stand By Your Woman at Hamer Hall in 2017 and 2018. She has also performed and toured with groups including Dorsal Fins, Ella Thompson, DANIKA, The Outdoor Type, Oh Pep!, and Phia.

Alongside her performance career, Claire has established herself as an enthusiastic and skilled programmer and producer, having worked for the Melbourne International Jazz Festival as both Acting Program Manager and Associate Producer from 2020 to 2023. She has since produced the export series “Melbourne International Jazz Festival presents” at the EFG London Jazz Festival in 2023, 2024, and 2025.

She is also a passionate advocate for gender equality. In 2015, Claire co-founded, alongside Lena Douglas, the non-profit organisation YoWo Music, a music performance program designed for high-school-aged girls and gender-diverse youth, which aimed to empower its participants to pursue careers in music and contribute positively to gender equity in the Melbourne music scene.

She has studied with luminaries including Björn Meyer, Shane Endsley, Phil Donkin, Christopher Hale, and Tamara Murphy.

For more information: www.clairecross.com.au