Els Crommen was born in Tongeren (Belgium) and grew up in nearby Hoeselt. After her secondary education in Tongeren, she attended the Royal Music Academy of Liège and studied with Edith Cuypers, Raymonde Serverius, Greta de Reyghere and José Van Dam. She achieved her certificates in opera, song, solfege and chamber music.

Later on she followed masterclasses with Noël Barker, Marlene Malas en Mikael Eliassen. Moreover she followed several courses with the Fondation Royaumont (France) and the European Centre for Opera and Vocal Arts (ECOV) with a course “song” in 1989 and a course “opera” in 1991.

She is at home with a lot of musical styles and she regularly collaborates with various ensembles :

• Contemporary music :
  • ensemble Nahandove ;
  • ensemble Oxalys ;
  • the Goeyvaerts ensemble (Aquarius) conducted by Marc Michael De Smet ;
  • the ensemble 88 (the Netherlands) conducted by Paul Pankert ;
  • the Quartz ensemble.
• Baroque ensembles :
  • Le Rondeau ;
  • the ensemble Col Basso (Les Muffatis) ;
  • Capella Henri Dumont, directed by Vincent Grégoire ;
  • Canti Soavi, directed by David Glückmann ;
  • Le Concert Spirituel, directed by Hervé Niquet.
• As a soloist, she gave concerts with
  • Pierre Bartholomée, Patrick Baton - Orchestre Philharmonique de Liège ;
  • Patrick Peire - Collegium Instrumentale Brugense ;
  • La Chapelle de Lorraine ;
  • Bo Holten - Brussels Philharmonic ;
  • Pascal Peiffer - Euro Symphonic Orchestra ;
  • Paul Dombrecht - Il Fondamento.

Moreover, Els Crommen gave a number of recitals, accompanied by Willy Appermont, Luc Ponet, Inge Spinette, Daniel Thonnard, Daniel Blumenthal and Boyan Vodenicharov. She also participated in a number of radio-recordings for the VRT and the RTBF (Belgian radio stations) and she made a lot of CD-recordings.

In 2000 she participated in the Queen Elisabeth contest for voice, and a few years later she became a laureate in the Erna-Spoorenberg contest in the Netherlands.

For more than 10 years she was a permanent member of the VRK (the Flemish Radio Choir) conducted by Vic Nees and Johan Duyck. Even now she regularly performs with this choir, either as a choir member, or as a soloist.

Next to her career as a soloist, she is also active in music education as a teacher vocal training in the music academy in Malmedy.

Els Crommen is the choirmaster of the vocal ensemble Alba Nova in Malmedy. She recently founded also the vocal group "Les Caramel's", with close harmony as their main object. This group consists of following singers : Els Crommen, Hélène Thonnard, Martine Médol and Carine Freches.

She is regularly invited in one of the following festivals :

• Festival van Vlaanderen ;
• Festival de Wallonie ;
• Festival Bach de St Donat (France) ;
• Festival de Niort (France) ;
• Ostbelgien Festival ;
• Festival Ars Musica.