David Coffin
DAVID COFFIN has
performed throughout New England for 25 years: in concert
halls, coffeehouses, fun-raisers, weddings, funerals, private
functions, schools, festivals, bonfires. -- you name it. He
is comfortable playing music to get a crowd to sing and dance
or to fill in the background and create atmosphere.
His instruments include voice, concertinas, recorders, penny
whistles, bombards (loud Breton double reeds), gemshorns,
cornamuse, shawm, rauschphieffe -- generally anything that
requires a lot of hot air. Many of these instruments are used
in his school enrichment program: Music for the King's
Court: Exploring the Early Winds.
David also performs solo or with any combination of piano, bass, fiddle, guitar, mandolin, and/or banjo. At the heart of his work is the presentation of traditional and contemporary folk music. He draws on vocal and instrumental music from the U.S., as well as England, Scotland, Ireland, and Brittany. David also has an extensive collection of songs from the Maritimes. Shanties, ballads, and dances comprise his main repertoire, though he still rises to the occasion to perform his favorite Baroque sonatas.
After four
consecutive years on the boat performing in a living history
tour of Boston, David is producing the show himself as a one
man show. Bringing history to life through song, drama and
video on THE boat tour of Boston Harbor, in conjunction with
Mass Bay Lines we enter our fifth season. Stay tuned and
check the schedule.
David has also been
performing with Revels since 1980 as a singer,
instrumentalist, and, since 1991, as Master of Ceremonies.
With the Christmas and Spring performances combined, he has
been in over 38 different shows, celebrating the solstices
through the traditions of many cultures.
In 2000 David quit his "day job" to become a full time performer bringing enrichment programs to schools throughout Massachusetts and New England. Music for the King's Court: Exploring the Early Winds is a one of a kind performance program that presents the history of the recorder and the "surrounding" wind instruments which will inspire the novice musician and wow the more advanced students.
The Wreck
of the Whaleship Essex: A True Story in Song is the third
of the enrichment programs that David is currently writing
.
Life at Sea: A
Voyage in Song is a lively enrichment program that gets
everyone singing the salty sea songs as they learn about the
mariners life far from home. NBC presented a two hour
documentary of the Wreck of the Whaleship Essex featuring
David's vocal and instrumental music Sept. 7th 2001.
David was also awarded "honorable mention" from Early Music America for their Early Music Brings History Alive prize in June of 2003.