Teaching Area(s)Director - The Art of Song Interpretation
Education
BA Antioch College
MSLS Wayne State University
Courses Taught
The Art of Song Interpretation
About
Claudia Hommel brings to student and adult singers more than four decades of stage and song career. She approaches each student and each song with insights and energy that come from her own studies with international singer Martha Schlamme, actor/director Alvin Epstein, music director Steve Blier, voice teacher Roberta Vatske, various Shakespeare workshops, Art Song sessions led by Dalton Baldwin, Meisner technique studio work, and dance.
Born in Paris, France and raised in Detroit, Claudia acquired a Masters in Library Science and worked as an archivist before going on to New York City to pursue a career in theatre and music. where she joined Actors Equity Association and SAG-AFTRA (the union of film and television artists). Calling Chicago home since 1990, she initiated the founding of Chicago Cabaret Professionals in 1997 and has been selected for the Illinois ArtsTour and Arts-in-Education rosters since 1998. She has presented clinic sessions for Illinois Music Educators Association.
Actor-singer, teacher, cabaret promoter, Claudia specializes in cabaret shows and recitals of French chansons, art songs, and American theatre songs—touring to performing arts centers, museums, universities and high schools from coast to coast, from Paris to Peoria. Her recordings of Paris/Paree, Paris in the Jazz Age, Romance Language: French Songs for Lovers, and the two Jazz Fauré Project albums are a reflection of her Paris-centric repertoire. Her Vocal Canvas concerts bring projections to the recital stage to “hear the painting and see the song”.
She co-founded the annual international exchange of Chicago Paris Cabaret Connexion and serves as the executive director of its umbrella performing arts organization Working In Concert since 2019. In 2024, she was presented La Renaissance Française Médaille d’Or pour les valeurs francophones (Gold Medal for francophone values) by the French Consul Général Cédrik Fouriscot in New York. She has been on faculty at the Community Music School of DePaul University in Chicago since 2003.