Coco is the founder and director of Bocca Musica™. It was a dream of Coco’s to have her own madrigal ensemble after performing with the Eastern Michigan University Madrigal Singers for four years under the direction of Professor Emily Lowe.
After graduating from Eastern, Coco taught choir, band and general music for 2 years. During that time she discovered a group called Our Lady’s Madrigal Singers (now Arbor Consort) and promptly joined. It was OLMS that introduced Coco to the Michigan Renaissance Festival. When she moved to take on a new teaching job, Coco was unable to continue with OLMS, so she became involved with the Middle Eastern Dance Ensemble as a drummer and dancer and continued to perform at the festival. After 2 years with the dance troupe, a new opportunity arose and Coco was asked to sit in and play flute with the Celtic band, Spiral Danse. The next year, she formed her own group in an entirely different genre, performing madrigals. Bocca auditioned at the end of the 1996 MiRF season and has been performing there, as well as other faires and venues, ever since. In addition to Bocca, Coco also went on to start a two woman group called the Bawdy Bohemians and performed at several Renaissance faires and festivals throughout the United States.
Currently, Coco teaches vocal music, guitar and humanities. She received her Bachelor of Music Education from Eastern MI University in 1991 and a history degree from Saginaw Valley State University in 1997. She earned her Masters Degree in the Art of Teaching from
Coco has also been the director of IMPROMP2, a Gospel Octet and currently performs with Cantata Academy, a Detroit based professional choir under the direction of Dr. Michael Mitchell. She was fortunate enough to be the featured soprano soloist performing Schubert’s “Missa in G” at an international choral festival in Zadar, Croatia and has also performed with Cantata in Germany, Austria, Italy, Slovenia, Czech Republic and San Moreno. Coco is honored to have worked with so many talented musicians and artists both locally and internationally through the years.
