Folk Biography

For almost four decades Claudia Schmidt has been exploring the nuances of acoustic music with her voice, 12 string guitar and mountain dulcimer with an exciting collection of original, traditional, and contemporary writing. From small clubs to large concert stages, her craft is at its height in live performance...She has been featured on PRI's A Prairie Home Companion, Mountain Stage, a television documentary on KTCA-TV in St. Paul called "I Sing Because I Can't Fly", and has written music for and acted in the musical "Bag Lady Tendencies" with Friends Mime Theater in Milwaukee and Frank Galati's production of "Good Person of Szechuan" at the Goodman Theater in Chicago, for which she won a Jefferson Award. All those elements of performing are brought to bear at a Schmidt performance as she mines the humor and poignancy of our lives and shapes it into a 'one-woman revitalization movement', as a journalist from Oakland, Ca. described her. The stage is her natural habitat, and every member of her audience is made to feel welcome and energized by her presentation.

Fourteen of her own CDs and several collaborations with other musicians beautifully archive the musical journey she has undertaken, and she is showing no signs of slowing down, writing furiously, more recording in the works, and touring a big part of the year.