Clare playing retained appeal in musical performance (7)
I believe the answer is:
recital
'musical performance' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'clare playing retained appeal' is the wordplay.
'playing' is an anagram indicator.
'retained' is an insertion indicator.
'appeal' becomes 'it'.
'clare' is an anagram of 'recal'.
'recal' placed around 'it' is 'RECITAL'.
'in' is the link.
(Other definitions for recital that I've seen before include "(Usually solo) concert" , "Performance, usually musical" , "Enumeration of facts" , "Soloist's performance" , "Performance of music by soloist" .)