Daniel Shirley, BMus’04, is glad his career path deviated early on during his undergraduate days at Vanderbilt.
“I didn’t start out as a music major,” he says. “I was leaning in a pre-law direction, but I started voice lessons with [Associate Professor of Voice] Gayle Shay. She helped me realize that singing could potentially be more than a hobby. I am also indebted to [Associate Professor of Voice] Jonathan Retzlaff and the rest of the Blair voice faculty, in particular to Professor Shay, because I came to them with no formal training and they heard potential.”
Shirley, a tenor in the final stages of earning his doctor of music at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, holds a faculty appointment as teaching artist of voice at the East Carolina University School of Music in Greenville, North Carolina.
“There’s a level of trust here [at East Carolina] among the members of the voice faculty, which is the most striking similarity with Blair,” Shirley explains. “I’m trying to foster an environment in my voice studio in which we all feel we’re on this path together. I’m getting to know my students’ voices better, and that opens up avenues for repertoire. That’s the fun part.”
Shirley’s repertoire runs the gamut from British composer Jonathan Willcocks’ tribute to Admiral Lord Nelson, A Great and Glorious Victory, which Shirley sang for his Carnegie Hall debut last January, to recurring roles as Tybalt in Charles Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette and Anthony in Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd. The opportunity to sing a diverse range of material drew him last February to the American Traditions Competition, a national vocal competition in which he placed fifth.
“Most of the time [in competitions], you sing and do your best, but you don’t expect anything. It’s hit or miss, but this time it was a hit,” he says. “It was exhilarating for me because I got to sing music I had not sung in public for years, like folk music, blues, jazz—none of which are part of my regular diet. Doing that competition made me realize it should be.”
He often performs with his wife, Caitlin, a soprano who also studied with Retzlaff as a precollege student at Blair. The two have performed recitals together for the Guild of the Lyric Opera of Chicago and performed the C.P.E. Bach Magnificat with the Choral Society of Durham (North Carolina) in December as soprano and tenor soloists. In November he sang Orff’s Carmina Burana with the Lexington (Kentucky) Philharmonic.
“Carmina is becoming a major fixture in my repertoire, which is pretty exciting,” Shirley says. “If I’m able to sing and teach music like this for the rest of my life, that’s living the dream.”
See Shirley’s performance of the jazz standard “Stardust”: