"Her silky voice has a rich and compassionate tone, a voice with unwavering power and strength”-The Permanent Rain Press
There is a pureness to Claire's voice that can silence a room. A moving songwriter and compelling guitarist, Claire combines her smooth signature folk finger picking, jazz influenced progressions and soaring melodies. With a powerful yet tender vocal delivery comparable to Eva Cassidy and Susan Tedeschi, Claire has been relentlessly touring her new album and drawing audiences in to her intimate and heart wrenching performances. Her new album “New Light” delivers carefully crafted, darker and more vulnerable reckonings of self worth, escaping abuse, painful goodbyes, fragile family dynamics and hope for the future. After joining forces with Juno award winning musician Sam Weber (Bahamas) and some of LA’s finest musicians (Dawes, Alan Hampton), the album presents fresh and spontaneous arrangements of her songs with mood filled percussion, slinky guitars, sparkling piano and shades of grunge and California rock. Claire Coupland brings a graceful contemporary feel to indie folk music, always with a touch of her “wicked sense of humour” (Rik Emmett, Triumph). Her music has been receiving steady on CBC Radio Canada and BBC UK.
Festival highlights include:
CityFolk Festival (Ottawa), Arisaig Americana Festival (Scotland) Wimborne Minster Folk Festival (UK), Exile Music Festival (UK), Harbour Blues ‘n Roots Festival (Vic), Mosaic Festival (BC), Roots North Music Festival (ON), Springtide Festival (ON), 39 Days of July), Filberg Festival (BC), Islands Folk Festival (BC), Living Roots Festival (NB), Peace Valley Folk Festival (BC), and more.
“Coupland delivers a highly professional, and astonishingly polished production with both a powerful and tender delivery” -Americana UK
EXTENDED BIO:
Once paralyzed by the fear of showing her songs to anyone else, this Vancouver Islander was encouraged to cultivate her love of songwriting and self expression, with help from mentors such as Rik Emmett and Sienna Dahlen during her Contemporary Music Degree at Humber College, in Toronto. Coupland has since independently written three studio EPs, her latest, reaching #3 in the National Folk/Roots/Blues charts in Canada with !earshot. Receiving steady CBC Radio airplay across the country, On The Other Side earned Claire her first song writing nomination (“Love In Your Eyes”, Ontario Arts Council), and has received praise and glowing reviews from music magazines, blogs, and radio stations in the US, UK and Europe. A BC born and raised musician, she has been touring Canada heavily since 2017, already landing major festival slots such as Kingsville Folk Festival, Islands Folk Festival, Midsummer Music Fest, Living Roots Festival as well as 6 transcontinental journeys across the country as VIA Rail Artist On Board. In 2018/2021, she was selected for the Singer Songwriter Residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts where she recorded with Billerman (The Arcade Fire) and worked with mentors such as Fats Kaplin (John Prine, Jack White), The Weather Station, David Francey, Kevin Welch, Kim Richey and Grammy winning song writer Don Henry. Claire was a featured writer for Humber Music's Producer In Residence Week with Bob Ezrin (KISS, Pink Floyd, Lou Reed, Deep Purple, Peter Gabriel), and has showcased at Folk Music Ontario and Folk Alliance International. A 2020 single “Here On In” earned her a spot as a semi finalist in the RootsTech Song Contest in 2020.