Dann Coakwell

Dann Coakwell is an American tenor who specializes in Baroque and sacred concert repertoire. He is particularly associated with the Evangelist roles in the works of Johann Sebastian Bach.

Career Coakwell is documented in independent Bach and performance databases as a specialist in sacred oratorio and in the Evangelist roles of Johann Sebastian Bach. He has performed as a soloist with ensembles including Conspirare, the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart, Bach Collegium Japan, Venezuela Symphony Orchestra, Pacific Baroque Orchestra, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, the Oregon Bach Festival, and the Dallas Bach Society, among others.

Recordings Coakwell appears as a soloist on the Grammy-winning album The Sacred Spirit of Russia (2014), recorded with Conspirare and released on the Harmonia Mundi label.

In a 2018 review of Bach’s St Matthew Passion with the Dallas Bach Society, The Dallas Morning News praised Coakwell’s Evangelist for his expressive range and vocal flexibility, writing that he “could caress the words, or spit them out in terror or fury,” and concluding that it “could not imagine a finer Bach Evangelist anywhere”.

Writing about a recording of Bach’s St Matthew Passion in Mendelssohn’s arrangement for the Bach Choir of Bethlehem, The Classical Review characterized Coakwell’s Evangelist as “nuanced and engaging”.

In a review for Gramophone, he was described as an “exemplary Evangelist,” with the reviewer noting his free and natural delivery in narrating the work.

Education and teaching According to an artist biography for the Colorado Bach Ensemble, Coakwell holds an Artist Diploma from the Yale School of Music and Institute of Sacred Music, a Doctor of Musical Arts and a Master of Music from Texas Tech University, and a Bachelor of Music from the University of Texas at Austin. He taught on the voice faculty at Ithaca College from 2017 to 2025, after which he focused on performing and guest teaching in the United States and abroad.