Daniel Shirley

Please click below to see full quote

Composer	Opera	Role
Bernstein	Candide	Candide
	West Side Story	Tony
Bizet	Les pecheurs de perles	Nadir
Britten	A Midsummer Night’s Dream	Lysander
	Albert Herring	Albert
	The Turn of the Screw	Peter Quint
DiChiera	Cyrano	Christian
Donizetti	L’elisir d’Amore	Nemorino
	Lucia di Lammermoor	Edgardo
	Don Pasquale	Ernesto
Floyd	Susannah	Sam
Gluck	Iphigenie en Tauride	Pylade
	Alceste	Admete
Gounod	Romeo et Juliette	Romeo, Tybalt
Handel	Acis and Galatea	Acis
	Semele	Jupiter
	Rodelinda	Grimoaldo
Lehar	The Merry Widow	Camille
Mozart	Die Entfuhrung	Belmonte
	Don Giovanni	Don Ottavio
	The Magic Flute	Tamino
	Idomeneo	Idomeneo
	Cosi fan tutte	Ferrando
	La Clemenza di Tito	Tito
Nicolai	Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor	Fenton
Puccini	Gianni Schicchi	Rinuccio
	La Rondine	Prunier
Rossini	Il Barbiere di Siviglia	Almaviva
Sondheim	Sweeney Todd	Beadle
	A Little Night Music	Henrik
Strauss, J.	Die Fledermaus	Alfred
Strauss	Salome	Narraboth
Stravinsky	The Rake’s Progress	Tom Rakewell
Sullivan	The Pirates of Penzance	Frederic
	The Mikado>	Nanki-Poo
	HMS Pinafore	Ralph Rackstraw
Tchaikovsky	Eugene Onegin	Lensky
Verdi	Falstaff	Fenton
	La Traviata	Alfredo
	Rigoletto	Duca
Vivaldi	Griselda	Gualtiero
Weill	Street Scene	Sam

Composer	Work
Bach	Mass in B minor
	St. John Passion
	St. Matthew Passion
Beethoven	Missa Solemnis
	Symphony No. 9
Britten	St. Nicholas Cantata
	War Requiem
Handel	Messiah
	Israel in Egypt
Haydn	Creation
	Lord Nelson Mass
	Missa in tempore belli
	Missa sancti Nicolai
	The Seasons
Mendelssohn	Elijah
Monteverdi	Vespers
Mozart	Grand Mass in C Major
	Requiem
	Coronation Massr
Orff	Carmina Burana

 

Championing a diverse and challenging repertoire which spans from the early Baroque to the avant-garde, tenor Daniel Shirley is emerging as an audience favorite on the opera and concert stages.  Highlights of the 2012-13 season included Jonathan Willcocks’ A Great and Glorious Victory in his Carnegie Hall debut, his New York City Opera to cover the Prologue/Peter Quint in The Turn of the Screw, Acis in Acis and Galatea with Madison Opera, and Will Tweedy in Carlisle Floyd’s Cold Sassy Tree with Sugar Creek Symphony and Song. Additionally, he was recognized this season by the William Matheus Sullivan Foundation with a Career Development Grant, and was a finalist for the George London Foundation awards.  Daniel will be featured with Chicago’s Music of the Baroque throughout the season, most notably as tenor soloist in Israel in Egypt. Next season, he performs the tenor solo in Carmina Burana with the Seattle Symphony as well as the role of Eurimaco in Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria with Boston Baroque.

As a young artist with Florida Grand Opera from 2010-2012, he performed Prunier in La Rondine, Tybalt in Roméo et Juliette (covering Romeo), and covered Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni.  Of his recent performance as Tybalt, it was said that “his pure and solid tone indicated that he might have had the equipment to be effective in the title role.” As a 2009 and 2011 apprentice artist with Santa Fe Opera, he covered Gualtiero in Griselda and Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni.

Mr. Shirley was recently invited by Maestro Frédéric Chaslin to record the role of Edgar in his new opera Wuthering Heights with the orchestra of the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia. Additional performances have included Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor with Arbor Opera Theater, Sam Polk in Susannah and Larry/Matt in The Face on the Barroom Floor at Central City Opera, where he served as a 2008 Bonfils-Stanton Foundation Apprentice Artist, as well as various engagements with Mississippi Opera and Opera Memphis as an Artist-in-Residence. Other roles in Daniel’s repertoire include Count Almaviva in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Nadir in Les pecheurs de perles, Tamino in Die Zauberflöte, Fenton in Falstaff, Ferrando in Cosí fan tutte, Nanki Poo in The Mikado, and the title role in Candide.

A passionate concert artist, Shirley has been lauded for his interpretations of the major works of the sacred canon.  He debuted with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra during December 2009 as soloist in Haydn’s St. Nicholas Mass.  He has sung Messiah with the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra and with choral and symphonic organizations throughout the Midwest, Elijah with the Lafayette Bach Singers, the Matthäus-Passion (arias) and Mozart Mass in c minor with the Bloomington Chamber Singers, Bach Mass in b minor with the Columbus, Indiana Philharmonic, and Haydn Creation as a guest artist of St. Joseph College in Indiana. He also joined oboist Elizabeth Robertson for the Vaughan Williams Ten Blake Songs on her album Oboe Serenade.

In addition to the Sullivan and London Foundations, Shirley is the recipient of awards from the Anna Sosenko Trust, the National Society of Arts and Letters, Central City Opera, the Orpheus National Vocal Competition, Chautauqua Opera, and the Dayton Opera Guild. His voice instructors have included tenor Jason Ferrante and mezzo-soprano Patricia Stiles of the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he obtained a Master of Music.  While there, he sang a variety of roles as well as two significant premieres: Dino in the collegiate premiere of William Bolcom’s A Wedding, and Joe Crowell in the world premiere of Ned Rorem’s Our Town.  With the university’s Pro Arte ensemble, he was honored to sing in the world premiere of John Harbison’s A Clear Midnight.  He holds a Bachelor of Music from the Vanderbilt University Blair School of Music, where he appeared as the Lover in Menotti’s Amelia Goes to the Ball.  Daniel is a native of Jackson, Mississippi. He and his wife, soprano Caitlin Shirley, reside in Chicago.