The format is a simple one. All singers are welcome; all styles of music, all levels of experience, all walks of life. Each singer shows up the afternoon of the show, charts in hand, and runs her songs with the CSN Band. Later that evening they hit the stage with a hot band in a cool venue and give the performance of a lifetime!

The CSN Bands: world-class musicians who create incredible music for and with each featured artist. Their contribution to CSN is immeasurable. We have a Gallery now to show off our amazing and world-class talented CSN Men - CSN Bands Gallery Page

Thousands of women have been featured on the Chick Singer Night stage. To join us, simply send in your CD, a brief bio and your contact information to the CSN address in your city, or you can attend a show and give it directly to one of the CSN Directors.

“Beautifully done and so sweetly sung!” – Peter Eldridge, singer/songwriter & member of the Grammy award winning group New York Voices

Ellen has sung in award winning vocal jazz groups VoicesIowa and Gold Company and has performed at the Montreux and North Seas Jazz Festivals in Europe, the Rocky Mountain Jazz Festival in Banff and the Monterey Jazz Festival Sea Cruise.  As a soloist, Ellen has performed jazz and cabaret all over the country.  She has been featured at wonderful venues like Danny’s Skylight Cabaret and Rose’s Turn in New York City and the Third Ward Summer Sizzle, Bastille Days and Summerfest stages in Milwaukee.

“If you think NY and LA are the only places to be, have I got news for you. Ellen Winters breezed through town for an intimate CD release party at Upstairs at Rose’s Turn and turned it upside down with her rocking jazz/pop stylings.  Ellen is a gifted songwriter as well.  I’m listening to her fabulous 2nd CD, Secret of Life, as I write this.”  — Kevin Scott Hall - Upstairs at Rose’s Turn

Ellen continues to be sought after as a jazz and cabaret singer throughout Milwaukee and the Midwest, while working as a clinician, adjudicator, and arranger.  Ellen is also on staff as a voice teacher/coach at the Waukesha Conservatory of Music as well as several locations/schools in Southeastern Wisconsin.  She is also on the Private Voice Faculty at Columbia College in Chicago.   Both of Ellen’s CD’s are available on Amazon and CD Baby, as well as Ellen’s live performances.  Ellen is signed to 251 Records, a Chicago-based independent label.

While she displayed “Pure Imagination” on her first CD, Ellen Winters lets Milwaukee in on her “Secret of Life” with her second.

Winters recently left her position at the Westown Association to dedicate herself fully to her music.

“The Westown Association was a wonderful place to work and I learned so much about the business world, event planning and about marketing. I’m grateful for the time I spent there; however it was becoming more and more clear to me that my music was not just a hobby,” Winters says. “It was becoming a second career and I realized that I wanted to focus my energies on my passion while I was still in a position to do so. Not many people even know what their dream is and I not only knew, but was in a position to actually pursue it — so I did.”

She says that her newest CD, “Secret of Life,” shows a maturation because she has grown as an artist and a person.

“‘Secret of Life’ was a fantastic journey for me both musically and personally. The process of recording was much more detailed than that of my first solo recording,” she says. “The project came out of a discussion with my producer/best friend Chris Cole, president of Chicago-based 251 Records, and took off from there.”

Cole and Winters shared a love for singer/songwriters, so they decided to create a CD that was a mixture of covers and original songs that were jazz oriented.

“We wanted to find more obscure tunes written by our favorite artists and turn them around to the jazz idiom. In the process, we found some originals by friends and a few collaborations I’d done with local jazz guitarist Steve Lewandowski and started make our ‘wish list’ of tunes,” Winters says. ” I found some tunes that really spoke to me that were written by friends like teacher/songwriter Jeremy Fox, Peter Eldridge of New York Voices, Brian Eichenberger of the Four Freshmen and Peder Karlsson of the Real Group and those quickly became ‘musts’ for the recording.”

The CD is rounded out with songs from Joni Mitchell, Harry Connick Jr. and other established artists.

Winters says that none of this would have been possible without hard work by her trio of Jim Ryan, Hal Miller and Sam Steffke. “This project would have been very different, (without them)” she says.

New York already celebrated the release of Winters’ “Secret of Life,” but this weekend she, and a few of her musical friends, will celebrate in Milwaukee, at Caroline’s Jazz Club, 401 S. 2nd St. Winters says that this weekend’s party should be less stressful than her Big Apple date, for which her CDs almost didn’t arrive in time.

“The CD release party in Milwaukee will be a blast, I know. After the stresses of the NYC release, I can enjoy the laid back, Milwaukee vibe and welcome friends, family and musical colleagues to help me celebrate this project,” she says. “I’m doubly proud to have utilized many of Milwaukee’s talented musicians on this recording and almost all of them will be there at the party. I deliberately scheduled the party for a Sunday afternoon so that many of my musician friends can attend. If I held it on a Friday/Saturday, I would risk losing about half of them to gigs.

“It was the perfect choice for my CD release party. I had my first one there in 2003 and it made sense to have the second one there as well,” she says. “Caroline’s was sort of my first musical “home” in Milwaukee when I moved back to town. A friend brought me to a jam session there in 2002 and they welcomed me with open arms and I started gigging with the Paul Spencer Band.”

After the CD release party, Winters will make her theater debut with In Tandem for “A Cudahy Carolers Christmas” at the Marcus Center for Performing Arts.

The newest offering, which was recorded in Milwaukee and Kenosha at The Exchange and Renwood Messenger Studios, has a wide range of tunes from the standard pop to traditional jazz. The recording features the talents of local artists: Sam Steffke, Harold Miller, Jim Ryan, Steve Lewandowski, Peter Mac, Jack Grassel, Scott Van Domelen (currently on tour with Glenn Miller Orchestra,) Warren Weigratz, Barb Stephan, and Alaria Taylor. While many of these songs are “covers” rewritten to fit the jazz idiom, several tunes are originals by Winters or other accomplished national and international artists. Singer/songwriter Peter Eldridge of the Grammy award-winning vocal jazz group New York Voices penned one original on this cd, as did Four Freshmen lead singer Brian Eichenberger and Swedish singer/songwriter Peder Karlsson of The Real Group.

Winters released “Secret of Life” in New York City at esteemed cabaret Rose’s Turn on September 30, 2006. New York City based jazz pianist Jess Jurkovic joined Winters again, just as he did in 2001 for her NYC cabaret debut. A Milwaukee CD release also took place on Sunday, October 22nd at Caroline’s Jazz Club. “Secret of Life” has received critical acclaim both in throughout the country:

“Beautifully done and so sweetly sung!” – Peter Eldridge, Grammy winner and founding member of New York Voices

“(Winters’) refined voice, with its clean tones and expressive nuances, breathes new life into most every traditional song. Just as exciting as the covers are the songs she pens herself, heartfelt opuses crafted in the spirit of the classics but filtered through the lens of a strong, thoroughly modern woman.” – Evan Rytlewski, Milwaukee Shepherd Express

251 Records released Winters’ debut CD, Pure Imagination, in Milwaukee in November 2003 to much praise. In 2004, Pure Imagination won the Reader’s Choice award for “Best Local CD Release” from Milwaukee’s Arts and Entertainment newspaper, The Shepherd Express. In 2004,2005 & 2006, Winters earned honors in that same Reader’s Choice Poll as Milwaukee’s “Best Jazz Artist,” a feat not typically achieved by a vocalist. The debut release also caught the attention of the Wisconsin Area Music Industry (WAMI) membership and garnered Winters a “Female Artist of the Year” nominations in 2005, 2006 and 2007; a “Traditional Jazz Artist of the Year” nomination in 2005 and a “Contemporary Jazz Artist of the Year” nomination in 2007. Both recordings are available for purchase at all of Ellen’s performances as well as through the CD Baby website and Amazon.com.