Biography
Claudia Schmidt ranks among the Midwest’s most celebrated folk and jazz performers. Her distinctive approach merges smoky alto vocals with proficiency on multiple instruments, drawing from earlier musical traditions to shape material that remains largely original yet reflects an unusually wide array of influences. Live performances mirror this breadth; one reviewer likened her appearances to “a lot like falling in love -- you never know what's going to happen next.”
Born in Michigan in 1953, Schmidt became a regular guest on National Public Radio’s A Prairie Home Companion. After relocating to Chicago in 1974 for secretarial and office-management work, she encountered the city’s folk scene, which featured Steve Goodman, Jim Post, and Bob Gibson. The exposure prompted her to master Appalachian dulcimer, 12-string guitar, and the deluxe pianolin, a 52-string zither-like instrument. Five years later she abandoned office employment to pursue music full time.
Her self-titled debut, issued in 1979 on the Illinois-based Flying Fish label, positioned her among the region’s leading singer-songwriters. Three additional Flying Fish albums followed—1981’s Midwestern Heart, 1983’s New Goodbyes, Old Hellos, and 1985’s Out of the Dark—alongside the 1987 duo project Closing the Distance with frequent collaborator Sally Rogers. That same year Schmidt signed with Red House Records, releasing Big Earful as her first title for the label and contributing to Steve Tibbetts’ Exploded View.
Essential Tension appeared on Red House in 1991, accompanied by a second Rogers collaboration, While We Live. Schmidt next composed the score, working with director Frank Calati, for a contemporary adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s play A Good Person in Setzuan. Staged at Chicago’s Goodman Theater in May 1992, the music earned a Joseph Jefferson Award. The 1994 release It Looks Fine from Here preceded an extended recording hiatus during which Schmidt and her husband, Bill Pellardino, restored a log farmhouse on Lake Michigan’s Beaver Island and operated it as a bed-and-breakfast; she later moved to Traverse City.
Recording resumed in the new century, beginning with the jazz-oriented I Thought About You in 2001 and continuing with 2006’s Live at the Dakota, captured at the Dakota jazz club in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Promising Sky, credited to Claudia Schmidt & Her Funtet and reflecting folk, jazz, and funk elements, came out in 2010. Reunions with Sally Rogers produced Evidence of Happiness in 2012 and We Are Welcomed in 2016. Between those projects Schmidt issued the solo album New Whirled Order in 2014 and, in 2018, Hark the Dark, a song cycle centered on winter, a season familiar to Michiganians. A digital box set distributed on thumb drive later supplied an extensive retrospective containing recordings, photographs, and interviews.
Born in Michigan in 1953, Schmidt became a regular guest on National Public Radio’s A Prairie Home Companion. After relocating to Chicago in 1974 for secretarial and office-management work, she encountered the city’s folk scene, which featured Steve Goodman, Jim Post, and Bob Gibson. The exposure prompted her to master Appalachian dulcimer, 12-string guitar, and the deluxe pianolin, a 52-string zither-like instrument. Five years later she abandoned office employment to pursue music full time.
Her self-titled debut, issued in 1979 on the Illinois-based Flying Fish label, positioned her among the region’s leading singer-songwriters. Three additional Flying Fish albums followed—1981’s Midwestern Heart, 1983’s New Goodbyes, Old Hellos, and 1985’s Out of the Dark—alongside the 1987 duo project Closing the Distance with frequent collaborator Sally Rogers. That same year Schmidt signed with Red House Records, releasing Big Earful as her first title for the label and contributing to Steve Tibbetts’ Exploded View.
Essential Tension appeared on Red House in 1991, accompanied by a second Rogers collaboration, While We Live. Schmidt next composed the score, working with director Frank Calati, for a contemporary adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s play A Good Person in Setzuan. Staged at Chicago’s Goodman Theater in May 1992, the music earned a Joseph Jefferson Award. The 1994 release It Looks Fine from Here preceded an extended recording hiatus during which Schmidt and her husband, Bill Pellardino, restored a log farmhouse on Lake Michigan’s Beaver Island and operated it as a bed-and-breakfast; she later moved to Traverse City.
Recording resumed in the new century, beginning with the jazz-oriented I Thought About You in 2001 and continuing with 2006’s Live at the Dakota, captured at the Dakota jazz club in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Promising Sky, credited to Claudia Schmidt & Her Funtet and reflecting folk, jazz, and funk elements, came out in 2010. Reunions with Sally Rogers produced Evidence of Happiness in 2012 and We Are Welcomed in 2016. Between those projects Schmidt issued the solo album New Whirled Order in 2014 and, in 2018, Hark the Dark, a song cycle centered on winter, a season familiar to Michiganians. A digital box set distributed on thumb drive later supplied an extensive retrospective containing recordings, photographs, and interviews.
Albums
