PLEIN AIR CONCERT SERIES: “Bonjour Paris” with Cabaret singer Claudia Hommel

Our Plein Air Concerts return to our jewel-box courtyard! Enjoy an hour of music with your friends while sipping rosé wine in an intimate setting. We cover the range from jazz to chansons françaises, and bossa nova to tap dancing and go international with performers from France, Argentina, Venezuela, and of course… Chicago!

Tonight’s program / Ce soir! 

Actor-singer Claudia Hommel sings “Bonjour Paris”, a program featuring chansons from Edith Piaf to Maurice Chevalier, accompanied by accordionist Patricia Spaeth. The founding member of Cabaret Week, seen more recently in the sold out  Homage to Josephine Baker at the Alliance last year–  Claudia is your ticket to Paris and beyond.

Claudia Hommel plays the role of chanteuse boulevardière to the hilt… the quintessential French entertainer offering an unspoken guarantee that you’ll think you paid for the evening in euros!

– Chicago Reader

Door opens at 6:00 p.m. Live music starts at 6:30 p.m. Please enter via 810 N. Dearborn. Each table of four includes one bottle of Rosé de Provence and salted nuts. Reserve early! Seating is limited in our intimate courtyard. Weather permitting otherwise event moves indoors in our salon.

More about Claudia Hommel:

Born in Paris and raised in Detroit, trained extensively in New York City where she lived for 8 years, and now calling Chicago home, Claudia leads an active career as a theatrical singer in clubs, recital halls, museums, libraries and theaters from New York City to California. Described as a “bit of Audrey Hepburn, with something of Ginger Rogers, Leslie Caron, Maurice Chevalier and… Air Jordan,” Claudia “will make you want to dance along the Seine. The Maison Clobert label features Claudia’s recordings of Parisian cabaret concerts: Paris/Paree, Paris in the Jazz Age, and Romance Language: French songs for lovers (featuring the legendary jazz violinist Johnny Frigo), and the classical-jazz crossover album The Jazz Fauré Project: au bord de l’eau.

Additionally, Claudia is one of the founding members of Cabaret Connexion.

More about Cabaret Connexion

To those who said “Cabaret est mort”, Cabaret Connexion said boldly “Vive le cabaret”. 

In 2016, Chicago- and Paris-based cabaret artists began discussing how we could help each other promote the art of cabaret. In Chicago, a kitchen-table meeting of Claudia Hommel, Elizabeth Doyle, Lynne Jordan, and Roxane Assaf gathered a team of volunteers from among the 200-plus members of Chicago Cabaret Professionals, participants in the ongoing SongShop workshop, singers who had participated in Singers Jazz Workshops in Paris in 2014 and 2015, students of the late Gwen Pippin, and others.

In Paris, discussions began at an outdoor café (of course) with Mylène Launay, animatrice of the weekly bal musette at Rue Mouffetard; Jean-Claude Orfali from the Cabaret Lapin Agile in Montmartre; and artists associated with Christian Stalla, editor of 80-plus titles in Collection Cabaret published by l’Harmattan

“Chicago Paris Cabaret Connexion bridges these communities through cultural exchange and promotes the art of cabaret by hosting international exchanges among cabaret artists, teachers and coaches, writers, historians, and fans. Like cabaret itself, connection is at the heart of these unique events: revealing how performers connect to their material and how our performance connects to the audience. We share personal stories that are vital to our universal experience.”

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Save the date!  

More Plein Air Concerts coming up!

September 12 : Chansons françaises with Natalie Colas, soprano, and  Isabelle Olivier, harpe. Register here

September 19 : Greta Pope returns! Register here

October 3: Jazz and Tap Dancing with Chicago Human Rhythm Project. Register here