Richard Coffey, Artistic Director of CONCORA  , is one of southern New England’s principal choral conductors. He founded CONCORA, Connecticut Choral Artists, as a professional vocal ensemble in 1974. Richard Coffey is Organist and Minister of Music of the South Church of New Britain, where he conducts a choir of professional and amateur singers and serves as Artistic Director of its Music Series, which annually presents concerts by visiting artists.

In frequent demand as a chorusmaster, Coffey has prepared choruses for many orchestras and festivals including the Hartford Symphony, Springfield Symphony, the New Britain Symphony, the Waterbury Symphony, the Bard Music Festival, and the Harkness Summer Music Festival. For five seasons, beginning in 1988, Coffey was Chorusmaster for the Connecticut Opera Association.

For three years, Coffey was Visiting Artist in Choral Music at the Hartt School, University of Hartford, where he conducted the Hartt Chamber Singers and taught graduate seminars in choral literature. He has served on the faculties of SummerTerm at Central Connecticut State University, the President’s College of the University of Hartford, the Colby Church Music Institute in Waterville, Maine, and the University of Connecticut at Storrs.

Coffey has served on the boards of directors of the New Britain Symphony, the Hartford Chapter, American Guild of Organists, and Chorus America, the Washington, D.C.-based national choral service organization. He also serves region–wide as adjudicator and clinician for keyboard and choral competitions and festivals. From 1980 through 1985 he served on a panel of advisors to the Institute of Sacred Music at Yale University. Coffey often makes presentations at regional and national conventions of the American Choral Directors Association, Chorus America, and the American Guild of Organists. He frequently writes reviews for the Choral Journal.

Coffey holds degrees in music from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and the School of Sacred Music of New York’s Union Theological Seminary. He was awarded France’s “premier prix” in organ performance following studies with organist Marie–Claire Alain in 1979. In 1992 Coffey was named Choral Director of the Year by the Connecticut Chapter of the American Choral Directors Association.