Elise LaBarge, French and Jazz Singer

Event planners and party hosts can expect an organized, communicative and professional collaborator who will work with the client to provide the kind of musical support needed to make the event a success.

Whether it's a piano and Cole Porter song playing in the background or a full Edith Piaf set with stories about her life, I style the performance to match the event atmosphere.

For those interested in a bigger sound, the musicians with whom I work are talented professionals who appreciate the art-form as much as the paycheck. They do more than play well, but play in a style that matches the desired experience.

Planners can get any range of entertainment including a 30 min personal living room set, two hours of event background music or a full 90-minute cabaret experience compete with interesting tales about the music of war, love and laughter. Each one inspires people to remember the golden age of music - music that entertained our greatest generation.

My goal is to have audiences always comes out smiling.

Press Notes:

“She leads us through Weill’s years in Berlin, then to Paris, and eventually to New York, giving us delicious samples of his work with various collaborators along the way. She sings in English as well as in utterly confident German and French; her accents and diction are simply beyond perfect… Hers is a finely trained voice. She’s done a great deal of opera, but she has none of that fish-out-of-water feeling that opera singers sometimes exhibit when attempting popular songs.” (KDHX, St. Louis)

"Elise LaBarge ran away with my ears—and my heart. Her splendid pure soprano is bell-clear, her diction makes every syllable as precise as a well-cut diamond. Moreover she has a dancer’s crisp movement and she projects an irresistible personality to the back row.” (KDHX, St. Louis)

Education:

Elise received a dual Honors BA in Music/French and International Studies from St. Louis University and completed her Master of Music degree in Vocal Performance at Washington University. She learned spoken French as a Rotary International Exchange Student in Liège, Belgium, and later developed her German skills in Bamberg, Germany at the Treffpunkt Language Institute.

Elise taught applied voice at St. Louis University for three semesters before moving to Chicago.

Cabaret and Classic Concerts:

Elise created and performed “1940s Paris: Cabaret Songs from the City of Lights and her Allies” for St. Louis University and afterwards remounted the solo show for a full audience at Davenport’s in Chicago. After presenting her Kurt Weill cabaret to sold out houses at the Kranzberg Arts Center, she has presented other solo sets at First Night St. Louis, Shakespeare Festival St. Louis, Union Avenue Opera, New Jewish Theatre, Dramatic License Productions, and Casual Cabaret.

Opera & Musical Theatre

Recent Chicago credits include Johanna in Sweeney Todd, and Jane in Babes in Toyland. In St. Louis, she appeared in Union Avenue Opera’s summer, concert and roles including Acis and Galatea (Damen/ensemble), Lakmé (Rose), L’elisir d’amore (Giannetta), The Pirates of Penzance (Edith), and Le Nozze di Figaro (Barbarina). Engagements with Muddy River Opera in Quincy, IL include The Marriage of Figaro (Cherubino), The Merry Widow (Valencienne), the world premiere of the musical Abe (Ann Rutledge), L’elisir d’amore (Giannetta) and The Mikado (Peep-Bo).

In 2010, Elise was a finalist in the International Lotte Lenya Competition in Rochester, New York.

Working and Playing in Chicago

She currently teaches private voice lessons in her Old Irving Park home studio, is a teaching artist for the Lyric Opera of Chicago, provides music for wedding ceremonies, parties and church services, sings French and German cabaret music, dances Argentine Tango, entertains children in opera productions, directs Darwin Elementary’s after school chorus and performs with The Irving Sisters where “everything’s better in threes.”

We generally require a microphone and sound system for larger venues.