The Leader of the Band

Musicians want to work with Chouinard for many reasons. Connelly first heard Chouinard on the pianist’s weekly KBEM radio show, The Singer’s Voice. Chouinard interviewed well-known local vocalists and got them to sing their favorite childhood songs. “People talked about Dan’s fantastic keyboard skills and his sly, understated interviewing style,” Connelly says. “That this one guy could be versatile enough to accompany the variety of singers he worked with and conduct the interview amazed me.”

Jette, one of Chouinard’s guests on The Singer’s Voice, says, “It’s easy to pigeonhole Dan as a cabaret player, but he’s also a superb classical pianist. He’s got a special kind of musical wit too—he can make a gut-busting joke out of a well-placed note.” As the gowned members of a singing ensemble made their way onstage at a recent fundraiser where Chouinard and Johnson were performing, Chouinard launched into “Pomp and Circumstance.”

Ostroushko says, “Dan has no fear on the keyboard. He’s a great improviser and arranger, in addition to being one of the nicest people you would ever want to know. It’s also a great bonus that he plays the accordion.”

Ah, yes, the accordion.

Though Chouinard developed an affinity for the instrument during his teenage years, a revelation on a month-long bicycle trip around Italy in 2000 spurred him to pursue it more seriously. “It occurred to me that I wanted to be a musician not just at home—but also on my travels,” he says. “So I resolved that I would come back to Europe with an accordion strapped on my bicycle.” He also realized he wanted to live at home the way he did while he was traveling—with a bicycle for his main transportation (Chouinard owns a car but doesn’t use it often), a flexible schedule (“I have time for quiet and staying put,” says Chouinard), and an attitude of discovery.

In late summer of 2001, Chouinard took his accordion to Europe. At the end of his three-week trip, he boarded a train for Nice, France, from where he was to depart for the United States the following day, September 12. The events of 9/11 left him stranded in Nice for a week.

Though his French and Italian are “fairly good,” Chouinard says, “it was a week of feeling profoundly alone. Out of that sense of aloneness came this challenge to push myself to start conversations or play the accordion in situations where I normally wouldn’t. A number of life-altering things happened that week, and the biggest one was the camaraderie with musicians and nonmusicians.”

Chouinard joined up with a group of gypsy accordionists from Romania who were sitting on the courthouse steps. The men passed his accordion around and shared tunes. On another afternoon, Chouinard attended a grape-harvest festival in a small village. He asked the band, which was playing a lot of Dixieland, if he could join them. The band obliged, and they played late into the night. The following day, the trumpeter invited Chouinard to join him as he wandered from restaurant to restaurant in Nice, playing for change. “That was a magical connection,” says Chouinard. “I’m still in touch with those guys, and when I went back a couple of years ago, I played some gigs with them. Interesting things happen when you travel with an accordion.”