Claudia Schmidt may be from Michigan, but anyone who has experienced one of her live performances knows that the stage is her natural habitat. In three decades of touring professionally, she has covered a lot of ground in America and Europe, performing in intimate venues and on festival stages before 25,000 rapt listeners. Claudia has recorded fourteen albums, participated in the delightful Les Blank movie, "Gap-Toothed Women," performed on Public Radio International’s "A Prairie Home Companion," written music for and appeared in the documentary, "Motherhood Manifesto" and on stage in the musical "Bag Lady Tendencies" with Friends Mime Theater in Milwaukee. But her craft is at its height in live performance where she mines the humor and poignancy of our lives and shapes it into a one-woman revitalization movement (as an Oakland journalist described her). In 2006, she teamed up with Dean Magraw ( who will be joining her for this concert) for a live jazz recording at the Dakota Jazz Club in Minneapolis. Claudia has always hated categories, often referring to herself as a "creative noisemaker" – a term that has irritated some critics as much as it has delighted many audiences who learn to expect anything at a Schmidt concert: a hymn, poem, bawdy verse, torch song, satire and the gamut of emotions. Attending a Claudia Schmidt concert is, as one critic wryly observed, "...a lot like falling in love."
visit the website at www.wsss.org for ticket information