Daniel Boucher

Daniel is a fiddle player and singer in the traditional French Canadian style who grew up in a Bristol, Connecticut family originally from Québec. Connecticut has a very large Franco community consisting of Québecois immigrants as well as Acadians settling here from Fort Kent, Maine. He took lessons from local fiddlers while learning many French Canadian tunes from his father Jules who plays accordion, spoons, harmonica, and limberjack.  Daniel also composes Québecois fiddle tunes. In 2008 he started Jam Français, a popular bi-weekly gathering of musicians at a restaurant near Bristol. These soirées, along with his family’s seasonal celebrations featuring music, dance, French Canadian traditional arts exhibits and food, especially the annual Maple Sugar Party, draw regular audiences from Rhode Island and Massachusetts and have revitalized French folk music in central Connecticut. Daniel has performed with music groups such as Chanterelle, The Beaudoin Family, singer Josée Vachon, and with a variety of musicians from across southern New England. Daniel’s group was invited to participate in the Québec 400 celebrations in Québec City in 2008, a great honor. Other performances have taken place at dance parties at Le Foyer in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, the Blackstone River Theater in Cumberland, Rhode Island, French Day at the State Capitol in Hartford, the International Festival of Arts and Ideas, and the public folk festivals in Lowell, Massachusetts and Bangor, Maine. Daniel brings together musicians to perform in a concert setting or a house party where their music inspires audiences to dance, join in the chansons de repondre (participatory songs), or play the spoons.