Claudia Schmidt and Sally Rogers in Concert August 27 at Camden Public Library
Claudia Schmidt and Sally Rogers have a magic that delights listeners. For many years, this pair has teamed up to make exquisite recordings and perform moving concerts, and they are finally coming to Camden, to perform at the Camden Public Library on Thursday, August 27, at 7:00 pm. The concert will be indoors in the Reading Room. Tickets are $12 and will be available at the library only. Call 236-3440 to make reservations or to purchase tickets, or visit www.librarycamden.org/shop/to purchase tickets online.
Sally Rogers and Claudia Schmidt are long-time friends with deep Michigan roots. From their first recording, “Closing the Distance,” they have produced incomparable songs with resonance far beyond their folk roots. The clarity of their harmonies and the interplay of their guitars and dulcimers create a wonderful concert and a rollicking good time.
Claudia Schmidt has been perfecting her craft of performing for four decades. It is a quirky and wonderful hodge-podge (her word!) of music, poetry, story, laughter, drama, and celebrating the moment. Work in clubs, theaters, festivals, TV, and radio has added depth and dimension, and since she has always included her original work along with very personal versions of the work of others, what you get is a unique look at the world from someone who says what she sees with clarity, humor, and wonder. As she says of her response to the world, “I whelm right over!”
The San Francisco Bay Guardian said: “Schmidt’s shows are a lot like falling in love. You never know what’s going to happen next, chances are it’s going to be wonderful, every moment is burned into your memory and you know you’ll never be the same again.” More succinctly, Garrison Keillor said, “when Claudia sings a song, it stays sung.”
As a touring professional, Claudia Schmidt has traversed North America as well as Europe in venues ranging from intimate clubs to 4,000 seat theatres, and festival stages in front of 25,000 rapt listeners. She has recorded nineteen albums of mostly original songs, exploring folk, blues, and jazz idioms featuring her acclaimed 12-string guitar and mountain dulcimer playing. From lying on sandy beaches under an endless barrage of northern lights, to the expected anguish and frustration of spinning tires on cars stuck deep in snow, from the age-old struggle of change between adolescence and adulthood to the observation of sheer idiocy, she leaves it to the imagination of her audience to conjure their own images of her storytelling and song. No interpretation of a Claudia Schmidt song or story is wrong–she invites audiences to tie their associations to her style.
Sally Rogers began performing as a Michigan State vocal student and then a budding performer, and soon hit the road, singing thousands of gigs across the country, eventually settling in Connecticut where she has raised two daughters with her husband, musician and wine-maker, Howie Bursen. Today, Sally continues to tour and teach music. In concert, Rogers performs traditional, contemporary, and original ballads and song, interwoven with stories taken from her life as a performer, a wife and a mother. Throughout her concerts, she accompanies herself on guitar and Appalachian dulcimer, or performs without accompaniment in a voice that needs no further enhancement.
Reviewers have described her voice in superlatives ranging from “remarkable” to “mesmerizing.” As one critic summarized, “It’s really next to impossible to do justice to a voice of that quality.” Much of the material performed by Sally includes compositions of her own, many of which are considered classics of the folk and popular genre. Rogers has toured extensively, performing as well as teaching workshops with adults and children. She has also appeared on A Prairie Home Companion and Mountain Stage as well as a favorite at folk and storytelling festivals.
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