As a vocalist, John Coons is at home performing in a wide variety of styles and settings. With a background in the worlds of classical, musical theater, jazz, and popular music, Coons is incredibly versatile as a performer and collaborator. He holds a Master’s degree in Classical Voice Performance from the University of Southern Maine.
Coons was an Emerging Artist with PORTOpera for three seasons and has performed roles with the Boston Opera Collaborative, MetroWest Opera, Lakes Region Opera and Opera New Hampshire’s Outreach program. As a classical soloist, he has performed with the Portland Symphony POPS, North Shore Philharmonic, Masterworks Chorale of Boston, Portland Choral Art Society, and Granite State Choral Society. Also as a soloist, John has performed the National Anthem for the Red Sox at a sold-out Fenway Park. In the realm of musical theater, John garnered critical acclaim for his “astoundingly high and powerful tenor top” in back-to-back performances as Henrik in A Little Night Music with the Heartwood Regional Theater and Metro Stage Company. Recently, he performed as Shane Stant and in the ensemble of Tonya and Nancy: The Rock Opera at the American Repertory Theater’s Club Oberon.
In the fall of 2009, John was selected by vocal jazz arranger/singer Kerry Marsh to perform a series of concerts with popular recording artist Ben Folds, the Boston Symphony Pops and the Rhode Island Philharmonic. Additionally, John went on to collaborate with Ben Folds as as soloist with the Pittsburgh Symphony POPS in 2010. Since then, John has been forging a genre-defying career which has included singing with various choral ensembles, opera work, singing backup to The Dresden Dolls’ Amanda Palmer, and his own original singer-songwriter material.
