David Sereda
Singer

david is a singer and songwriter, pianist and composer, voice coach, producer and educator who works across Canada. He is a collaborator who mixes it up in different combinations of music and theatre. His musicals Love Jive (Dora nomination) and Siren Song with playwright Don Hannah were produced by the Tarragon in Toronto. While living in Regina he partnered on new multi-arts productions with New Dance Horizons and Curtain Razors. He has hosted and produced 44 Stray Dog Salons in Toronto and Owen Sound, exuberant evenings with musicians, writers, poets and dancers.

david was born and raised in Edmonton, Alberta. He can’t remember a time when he didn’t sing. He studied classical piano, then theatre before finding his voice as a singer-songwriter. He came out as a gay artist before his first album in 1981 and continues to release music on his indie Rocky Wednesday label. Concert and festival performances include the Winnipeg, Vancouver and Regina Folk Festivals, the SING! (a cappella) Festival and Toronto International Festival of Authors, with poet and novelist Anne Michaels. He’s sung his music with choirs from coast to coast: the Nova Scotia Mass Choir (with Jackie Richardson), Montreal Jubilation Choir, Youth Outreach Mass Choir, Echo Women’s Choir (Toronto) and the Vancouver Men’s Chorus.

Since his move to Annan, near Owen Sound and Georgian Bay, in 2001 he has become part of the lively cultural landscape of Grey Bruce, leading Song Circles at the Owen Sound Emancipation Festival, facilitating workshops and singing at Summerfolk in addition to his own concerts. He is pleased to be associate artist with Sheatre, a local community arts company devoted to social change and telling community stories. Collaborations with Sheatre’s Joan Chandler include the musicals TOM(inspired by artist Tom Thomson) and plays Ye Canna Throw Yer Granny Off A Bus (about elder abuse and prevention), The Dementia Play, and Be Our Ally (about homophobia and LGBTQ+ rural perspectives).

david recently received an Ontario Arts Council grant to write songs about living in our turbulent world. Recent and ongoing projects are the community Song Circles, composing for film, and dialogues with poet and novelist Anne Michaels – including the performance inspired by Tom Thomson’s art, life and passion, The Woods Are Burning.

Life-changing onstage moments include playing lead thundersheet for a production of King Lear, opening for two musical heroes, Joan Armatrading and Laura Nyro, and singing the closing song for the International Conference on HIV/AIDS in Vancouver.

Life-changing offstage moments often become songs.