Daniel Keeling

Daniel Keeling is a performing artist, educator, and voice teacher who interprets and teaches many types of repertoire, from music theatre and classical to jazz and mainstream. He has performed musicals, opera, classical works, and popular music at some of the world's leading and prestigious stages, festivals, venues, and concert halls. 

Mr. Keeling is a background singer for and band member of Sarah Connor, a prominent German pop singer. He has toured with Ms. Connor on her HERZ KRAFT WERKE Spring and Summer Tours 2022. These tours resumed from her HERZ KRAFT WERKE Autumn Tour 2019, in which he also participated. They were commercially successful and performed to tens of thousands of audiences across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland — combining 67 performances. Noted venues and arenas included Waldbühne Berlin, Rhein-Main Congress Center Wiesbaden, Festwiese Apolda, Barockgarten am Festspielhaus Füssen, Open Air Graz, Open Air Wien, Volkspark Mainz, Open Air Dresden, Festhalle Frankfurt, Porsche-Arena Stuttgart, Barclaycard Arena Hamburg, Olympiahalle München, LANXESS Arena Köln, Mercedes-Benz Arena Berlin, and Barclaycard Arena Hamburg — which was the location for the recording of the Sarah Connor ”HERZ KRAFT WERKE Live" Album (DVD/Blu-Ray/CD). 

As an interpreter and champion of modern and contemporary classical works, Daniel worked closely with composer Philip Glass and poet/songwriter Leonard Cohen in their song cycle entitled Book of Longing. BOL was recorded commercially, critically acclaimed, and toured internationally. BOL performed in the following countries: The Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Taiwan, Australia, United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Hungary, New Zealand, Spain, and Greece. Some notable venues and festivals included the Sydney Opera House, the Barbican Centre (London), Lincoln Center Festival (Rose Theater at Lincoln Center), Ravinia Festival (Chicago), Spoleto Festival (USA), Béla Bartók National Concert Hall (Budapest), National Theater Concert Hall of Taiwan (Taipei), New Zealand International Arts Festival (Wellington NZ), Festival Internazionale di Villa Adriana (Tivoli IT), Scripps Performing Arts Center in Claremont (California USA), Adelaide Bank Festival of Arts (Australia), Stanford Lively Arts (California USA), and Olympic Badminton Theatre (Athens GR). 

Roles from contemporary operas performed are Dewain in Da vid Adams' I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky at Il Teatro dell'Opera di Roma and A Slave, à la Greek Chorus in David Lang's Difficulty of Crossing a Field at Peak Performances @ Montclair University. In addition, he performed the role of Crown in George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess at Sächsische Staatsoper "Semperoper" (Dresden DE), Komische Oper (Berlin DE), Deutsche Oper am Rhein (Düsseldorf DE), and Theater 11 (Zürich CH) with New York Harlem Theatre, and has interpreted other modern works by composers Leonard Bernstein (I, Too, Sing America, Baritone soloist), Aaron Copland (The Tender Land, Grandpa Moss), Stravinsky (The Rake's Progress, Nick Shadow), Kurt Weill's (Die Sieben Todsünden, Die Mutter), Shostakovich (14th Symphony, Bass soloist), and Harry Partch (Oedipus Rex, Tiresias).

Regarding standard opera repertoire, Daniel has performed Figaro in Il Nozze di Figaro (Mozart), La Voce in Idomeneo (Mozart), Oroveso in Norma (Bellini), Giorgio Germont in La Traviata (Verdi), and Escamillo in Carmen (Bizet).

Daniel's musical theatre credits include Joe/ensemble in On The Town (Music Theater Wichita), Benjamin in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (Music Theater Wichita), Fred in Smokey Joe's Cafe (TheatreWorks Silicon Valley), and Swing/ensemble in the 1st and 2nd National Tours of the 1994 Broadway Revival of Show Boat. 

Other credits include featured soloist with the Bielefelder Philharmoniker in its co-presentation of The Motown Soul Symphony and The Michael Jackson Symphony Experience (Bielefeld DE), feature soloist in two installments of Robert Beitsch's SoulDance at the renowned Admiralspalast (Berlin DE), two residencies at Berlin's A-Trane Jazz Club as a featured soloist in JC Dook's All-Stars: A Soulful Beatles and My Motown Soul (recorded commercially), and lead singer of the nouveau jazz/pop group Deja Nova Trio — wherein he collaborated on 20 original songs.

Prior to UCI, Daniel had a vocal studio comprising 25 private vocal students. Also, he taught music as a subject at a few primary, middle, and secondary level schools in Berlin, Germany.

Daniel is a proud native of Topeka, Kansas. He received a BM from Wichita State University. Afterward, Daniel earned an MM from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM). At CCM, he was also a postgraduate in the MFA program in Drama—Musical Theatre Emphasis.

Always a New Yorker at heart, Daniel considers Berlin and now Irvine his home. linktr.ee/DanielKeeling