Daniel Norman

Daniel Norman is an English tenor who began to establish an important career in the 1990s, following earlier success as a treble voice soloist. He is also known for a wide and unusual repertory. As a boy singer her became a chorister at Lichfield Cathedral, where he received his early musical education. He made several records and appeared on national radio broadcasts. He became a choral scholar at New College, Oxford. This British tradition is a position gained in competitive auditions wherein an accomplished singer receives a scholarship in exchange for singing, primarily at daily services in the college chapel, and receives further musical education. Those receiving such scholarships do not necessarily study music as their major subject; in Norman's case he studied engineering. However, after graduation, he continued musical studies in the U.S. and Canada, studying at Banff and Tanglewood. He returned to England for professional studies at the Britten-Pears School where he studied French song with Hughes Cuenod, English song with Anthony Rolfe Johnson, and Bach interpretation with Ernst Haefliger. He also attended the Opera Course at the Royal Academy of Music, then continued his studies with Diane Forlano. His operatic repertory has shown a nearly unique emphasis on twentieth-century works. Early in his career, he sang the part of the Major in Britten's Albert Herring at the Combined Royal Colleges Opera Department. He has also sung the roles of the Narrator and Captain Ahab at the Cambridge Opera Group, Hermes in Sir Michael Tippett's King Priam, Weill's Silbersee at the Broomhill Opera, and Thomas Adès' Powder Her Face for the Aldeburgh Festival, a production that was televised. He has sung all three leading tenor parts in the three Britten church parables, the Madwoman (Curlew River), Nebuchandezzar (The Burning Fiery Furnace), and the Tempter (The Prodigal Son). He has also sung Pliable and Mr By-Ends in Vaughan Williams' The Pilgrim's Progress. In the field of older opera, he sang with Opera Restor'd in a triple bill on works by Dibdin. He has also sung in a staging of Janacek's dramatic song cycle The Diary of One who Vanished. He is a frequent recitalist, in which capacity he has appeared at the Holywell Music room, the New College Chapel in Oxford, the Wigmore Hall, St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Leighton House, the Tanglewood Music Center, and the Southwark Festival. He is well known as an oratorio singer, having sung Bach's St. Matthew Passion in Oxford, Handel's Messiah, Bach's St. John Passion, and such major liturgical works as Dvorák's Stabat Mater, Rossini's Petite Messe Solonelle, Orff's Carmina Burana, Mozart's Requiem, and Beethoven's Missa Solemnis. His recordings include Bruckner motets with St. Bride's Choir on Naxos, the Janacek cycle on Hyperion, and on discs in Graham Johnson's Schubert Edition series.