Daniel Rodriguez Media Archives

Gabrielle Reilly interviews Daniel

September 2011

"His voice resonates somewhere deep in your soul...
perhaps he has learnt to tap into the love and kindness
that all religions speak off with not only his voice, but by his kind and loving actions."

Daniel Rodriquez rescued Americans on the ground as a police officer on 9/11 and then comforted and lifted American spirits by singing the national anthem at the first Yankee game after 9/11.  Known as "the singing police officer" Daniel quickly shot onto the world stage.  His voice resonates somewhere deep in your soul... perhaps he has learnt to tap into the love and kindness that all religions speak off with not only his voice, but by his kind and loving actions.

There is much we can all learn from Daniel about what it means to really live.  So saturate your soul with his written words, they will resonate in your body too and perhaps take you on a personal journey to fulfill your own destiny.  Daniel is back in America doing concerts to raise money for the victims of earthquakes in New Zealand and Japan so be sure to check his schedule.

Gabrielle Reilly:  Your voice is magnificent. When you sing it does not just sound like music, it sounds like you tapped into spirit.  Do you have any way of describing the way you tap into that spirit?   Daniel Rodriguez:  I have always felt the presence of God in my life and I try and tap into that spiritual place when I sing. I believe that I have a responsibility to transport my audience to where I am and so I work on being present to the song and the message or story it is communicating.

Gabrielle Reilly:  What words of advice can you offer our readers to help inspire them?   Daniel Rodriguez:  Keep your heart in the right place and the rest will follow.

Gabrielle Reilly:  What has been your favorite career highlights?   Daniel Rodriguez:  There are so many it is hard to pinpoint just a few but here are two that stick out the most in my memory. The first Yankee game after 9/11 was an electric night full of excitement as well as uncertainty for what the future held for the city but when my name was called and the capacity crowd swelled with cheers I felt part of something much bigger than myself and yet everyone was focused on me, in those 2 and 1/2 minute to pay tribute to the city and the nation with my most heartfelt rendition of our nations Anthem. It was the stuff that dreams are made of. The 2002 Winter Olympics where the same feelings rose in me but now I'm on the world stage.

Gabrielle Reilly:  Where did you meet your wife, a New Zealand native, opera singer, Marla Kavanaugh?  Daniel Rodriguez:  I met my wife in New York just before we were to embark on a musical tour of New Zealand together.  I was signed to E.M.I. Capitol records and she was being sought as a possible singing for the label so the label decided to put us together for a tour in N.Z.  We decided to meet and get acquainted in N.Y. first.  I met her in midtown and we went to a little French bistro named Meli Melo and within 15 minute we knew the story of each other lives.

Gabrielle Reilly:  Tell us about your American tour to help raise funds for New Zealand's earthquake victims?   Daniel Rodriguez:  My wife and I have always believed that we are blessed and with that blessings come the responsibility to give back.  So in January of this year we organized a fundraiser for the victims of the coal Mining accident in the small town of GreyMouth in the south Island of N.Z.  Now once again we find ourselves faced with a greater tragedy and devastation both in New Zealand and Japan, so we are organizing a series of fundraiser's around the country to try and help.

Gabrielle Reilly:  As a policeman in NY on 9/11 what impacted you most about that day?   Daniel Rodriguez:  I had several awakenings on that day. I always considered myself a singer first and all other things secondary but when the towers came down and I was faced with the decision to honor my oath or turn and run, I understood that I was both and that in that moment I was New York City Police Officer and if this was to be my final moments than I wished to be found at my post doing the job that I was entrusted to do and side by side with my brother officers. Later, as we all worked to find the fallen among the rubble, I felt that I had more to give to this tragedy. When the call came from then Mayor Giuliani to sing at "Prayer For America" I realized that I had a "calling" and that all my life was in preparation for the moment. Gods gift would do the most good, for the most people, in a time when it was needed most.

Gabrielle Reilly:  What are your dreams for the future?  Daniel Rodriguez:  I hope that I continue doing what I am doing today for the rest of my life. I pray I have a long enough life so I can see my children grow and be successful and I look forward to spending that life with my beautiful wife by my side. I hope that I can make a small difference in the world for the better. If I could have one thing become truth in all men's minds it would be that we are all one human family and we should love and respect each other.

2011: Broadway Marks 9/11 Anniversary With Special Performance

NY theater community pays tribute to the firefighters & police officers who lost their lives that day 

Getty images

2011: Patriotism's new face 10 years after 9/11
"I want to be an ambassador to show that positive things rose out of the ashes.
We survived.  We thrive, and we are spiritually still alive."


* CBS NEWS VIDEO
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/09/06/earlyshow/main20101910.shtml

(Clips from CBS News report) With the 10th anniversary of 9/11 less than a week away, "The Early Show" begins a series that looks at how we've changed since that tragic day.

Some joined the military, often derailing careers to answer the call of country. Pat Tillman famously put his football career on hold to join the Army, and tragically lost his life in Afghanistan. Others lined up to donate blood. The Red Cross says more than a quarter million people decided to donate blood for the first time.  And then there's Daniel Rodriguez, the singing police officer. Rodriguez was on duty that Tuesday in September 2001.

Rodriguez recalled, "Things I remember, the sounds of the radio -- officers calling for help. And we just did what we had to do, I was a New York City police officer at that moment."And after the carnage, Rodriguez, a tenor, was asked to sing at funerals and tributes.

"When I sang, that's when my healing began," Rodriguez said. "I began to heal and really feel like I was playing my role in this tragedy."Rodriguez discovered that he could do more good as a singer than he could as a cop.

So he left the force and embarked on his mission to lift spirits with his voice."I want to be an ambassador to show that positive things rose out of the ashes," Rodriguez says. "We thrive. We survived, and we are spiritually still alive."

Singing tenors helped healing process, one 7th-inning stretch at a time
By Steve Henson, Yahoo! Sports | Yahoo! 9/11 10th Anniversary – Mon, Sep 5, 2011
The singing of "God Bless America" during the seventh-inning stretch of New York Yankees home games provides a communal reminder of the lives lost Sept. 11, 2001 -- of the heroism of first responders and the resolve of a nation to never forget. Stirring performances of the song thrust two tenors in particular to prominence and made them seemingly inseparable from homage to 9/11 and Yankee pinstripes.
 
(Courtesy Daniel Rodriguez)
Daniel Rodriguez, the "Singing Policeman," wore his NYPD uniform and created a flesh, blood and vocal cord connection to the men and women who worked tirelessly in the tragedy's aftermath. He sang "God Bless America" and "The Star Spangled Banner" at Yankee Stadium on many occa

sions, beginning with the nationally televised interfaith ceremony Sept. 23, 2001, called "A Prayer for America."
Ronan Tynan, a double leg amputee, physician and founder of the Irish Tenors, included a previously obscure first verse to his robust rendition of "God Bless America" and had sellout crowds joining in and shedding tears. He sang at the interfaith ceremony, at the Yankees' first home game after the tragedy two days later and at countless more games season after season.

Ten years later, however, Rodriguez and Tynan are no longer asked to sing at Yankee Stadium. Neither man were a part of the 10-year commemoration on Wednesday. Both of their names are omitted from a page in the team's media guide devoted to the Sept. 23 and Sept. 25, 2001, memorials. Both men are bewildered.
The team cut ties with Rodriguez in 2007, and he believes it's because he committed the faux pas of singing "God Bless America" one time at Fenway Park, home of the Yankees' despised rivals, the Boston Red Sox. That the Yankees happened to be the visiting team that day didn't help. That the occasion was to honor first responders in Boston didn't matter.

"I've been blackballed because of one game in Boston," Rodriguez said in an interview with Yahoo! "One thing I felt most connected to was the Yankees. I've volunteered to sing again but I don't get a response."
Tynan's gaffe was more egregious and it alienated him from more than just the Yankees. Two years ago he was accused of making an anti-Semitic comment by a Jewish woman who was considering moving into his apartment complex. The incident was reported in the tabloids, the Yankees immediately distanced themselves from Tynan and he was, he says, subjected to so much abuse on the streets of Manhattan that he moved to Boston.
 
"I felt desperately isolated," Tynan said in an interview with Yahoo! "I got death threats. I got powder sent through the mail. I was abandoned. It was very frightening." The Yankees declined to comment about either singer, although a team source downplayed Rodriguez's contention that he's been "blackballed" because he sang at Fenway Park. On September 11 the Yankees will be in Anaheim playing the Los Angeles Angels, so they commemorated the anniversary Wednesday during the last game of their homestand. Medal of Honor winner Sgt. First Class Leroy Arthur Petry was honored along with other members of the armed forces.

Major League Baseball will join in observing September 11 as a National Day of Service and Remembrance, fitting because the national pastime played a significant role in our collective healing 10 years ago. Commissioner Bud Selig canceled all games for five days after the attacks. He agonized over whether to cancel the remainder of the season or resume play.  He consulted with President George W. Bush and reflected on a January 1942 letter in which President Franklin D. Roosevelt urged commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis to "keep baseball going" through World War II.

"I think it's important to play," Selig said at the time, "for the same reason the president said it was important to try to get things back to normal." The impact was profound. Games resumed but time was taken to remember those who died at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in the plane crash in Pennsylvania. Emotional moments were plentiful, including the pregame ceremony at Game 3 of the World Series at Yankee Stadium when President Bush threw a strike with the ceremonial first pitch.

Selig's decision to have every team replace "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" with "God Bless America" during the seventh-inning stretch for the remainder of the 2001 season was widely praised. The Yankees are the only team that has continued the practice for 10 years. The song has been performed at every Los Angeles Dodgers home game the past three seasons and the Seattle Mariners have performed it at most home games. Every other team reserves it for Sundays, holidays and special occasions.

The Yankees' Sept. 11, 2002, tribute before their game against the Orioles was among the most moving anywhere. As police, fire and military officers unfurled an American flag recovered from the wreckage of the World Trade Center, legendary public address announcer Bob Sheppard said, "This flag represents the strength of the American resolve." Tynan sang "God Bless America," and fans began chanting "U-S-A, U-S-A."
 
"You could feel the emotion in the crowd," Tynan recalled. "So many times I wanted to stop and let the crowd sing. But I felt I owed them and wanted to leave it out there with every bone in my body. If I didn't make that song special, I felt I would have betrayed them. I was with them 100 percent."

His camaraderie with the people of New York vanished in October 2009 on a day Dr. Gabrielle Gold-von Simson, a New York University Medical Center physician, was shown the apartment next to Tynan's. A few weeks earlier, according to Tynan, two Jewish ladies had been shown the apartment and Tynan spoke to them, telling them he was a tenor and liked to sing in his apartment.

"Their response was hilarious," he said. "They said, 'Huh!' and just left. They weren't enamored by my profession."
So when Gold-von Simson looked at the apartment, Tynan again asked the realtor about the prospective tenant. The realtor told him not to worry, that she wasn't a Red Sox fan, and Tynan said he replied, "As long as it's not those Jewish ladies. That would be scary."

Gold-von Simson overheard the exchange and was so insulted she contacted the Yankees, who severed ties with Tynan the next day. He contacted Gold-von Simson, apologized and made a donation to the charity of her choice. But it was too late. The tabloids ran with the story and Tynan was branded an anti-Semite.

He continued to try to blunt the damage, singing at a national meeting of the Anti-Defamation League a few weeks later. The organization's director, Abraham Foxman, said, "It is our belief that when an individual who has a record of good works, as does Dr. Tynan -- who performed at many charitable events, particularly after 9/11, and for the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan -- slips up on one occasion, a sincere apology should help everyone move on."
The Yankees haven't done so, and Tynan -- the last to sing "God Bless America" at the old stadium and the first to sing it at the new stadium -- remains persona non grata. So does Rodriguez, whose offense seems inconsequential, especially in light of Tynan's ordeal.

An NYPD officer who'd walked a beat in Brooklyn and worked undercover, Rodriguez was two blocks from Ground Zero when the Twin Towers came down. "A few times that day I made my peace with God," he said. "Then I just flipped to cop mode and got to work, helping any way I could."

Rodriguez spent 9/11 and the days and weeks afterward working to find survivors. One day Tynan was at Ground Zero as well, serving food to emergency responders. A man asked if he'd sing "God Bless America."
"You realize it's so important for these wonderful men and women giving unconditionally," Tynan said. "While they were all working, I sang. Then two cops came up and asked me to sing 'Danny Boy.'" Tynan and Rodriguez became friends, bonded by their mellifluous voices, their role in comforting New Yorkers and, especially, their shared communion singing to the sellout crowds at Yankee Stadium. Neither man was ever paid for doing so.
No doubt, the exposure boosted the careers of both tenors. Rodriguez has released two successful CDs. Tynan gets as much work as his voice can take. They will sing at multiple functions associated with the 10th anniversary remembrance of 9/11.

But others will do the singing at Yankee Stadium, night after night. "I sing for the [New York] Rangers, the Islanders, the Mets, but not the Yankees," Rodriguez said. "It's the same for Ronan. As we all do, he spoke one time without thinking. I sang one time at a Red Sox game. We represent something positive that came out of a tragedy.

Daniel Rodriquez, the “Singing Policeman”.

May 2011 The Netherlands

Reformatorisch Dagblad;    14.5.2011                       Evert van Dijkhuizen

Arnhem: Clouds of noise, but also silence, spontaneous emotion in a dash of show.
One thing is certain: there has been made music, this Friday night in the Eusebius Church.
In the main, the American tenor Daniel Rodriquez, the “Singing policeman”.

The audience that the old cathedral Arnhem flows, mixed states, based on the eye. The PR machine for the Concert Tour 2011 has worked, obviously. Tonight the second concert in a series of three. Wednesday was the tour of the Rotterdam Laurens Church, Saturday ride the international music caravan to Mary Magdalene Church in Goes.
Andre van Vliet opened the concert with an unannounced, but fresh, free solo on the Strumpfler-organ, the instrument that once the old Jan Zwart in the Amsterdam Kloveniersburgwal indulged his inspiration. Presenter Jan van den Bosch continue sits highly welcome word in: “Today was a cloudy day, but a brilliant musical evening is ahead for you”.

To Daniel Rodriquez, the policemen who helped victims at Ground Zero after the attacks on the Twin Towers, the honor for the real kickoff. Before that he had chosen a first class everpopular: Amazing Grace. The text is from slave-driver John Newton after his conversion, in which he had sung out his wonder about God’s grace. The American tenor gives the text and music, inspired by the warm support of the Hineni Symphony Orchestra under chief conductor Lubertus Leutscher. The evening cannot go wrong now,” commented the the presenter. Tad premature  perhaps, but it is impressive.

At “Whiter Than Snow” the male choir, Ichthus from Sliedrecht, led by Martin Zonnenberg, make its appearance. The 150 man are under the organ  drawn away to the public, but thanks to five speakers which bring, through reinforcement, the music close. Literally, sometimes  figuratively. The choir impressive, especially in soft parts.
Rodriquez has not come only to Arnhem. His lovely wife, opera singer Marla, is on the arm of another man brought, for a few duets, including the graceful ‘Pie Jesu’. The spouses are musically matched, look at each other while singing, constantly, in the eye. The audience devour them.

“Nearer My God to Thee” has a special background. The song was played by the orchestra aboard the Titanic when the ship capsized and many people were killed in the icy water. Rodriquez has something deeply tragic in such numbers. The musical emotion comes to a climax, sometimes mixed with a little show, but there for he is American.
Marjolein de With, flutist, like her teeth biting on “Concertino” by Cecile Chaminade, one of the few female composers one hundred years ago. She wrote it as a test piece for flute students from the Conservatory.  Marjolein invited by presenter van de Bosch shows the score, literally black with notes, to the crowd. She plays the virtuose piece, largely from memory. A musical achievement.

What everyone expected from “You raise me up”, happens. Daniel, choir, orchestra and piano float like a cloud of sound through the vast church space. The music is like a night candle. On the men’s final chord swells once more. Class.  Leading to the break the world-famous Chorus performs from Verdi,  Van den Bosch indicates the public the great aim of the concert tour: to raise money for three charitable institutions: Word and Deed, The Hart for Children and the Hope foundation.

After the break the impressive Hineni Orchestra plays the solo “The Power of Love”, with a fugue in it real, charming pizzicato play and beautiful harp sounds. New peak appears the duet “the Prayer”. The tones of the soprano Marla and the tenor Daniel reach toward each other, for unison, literally standing at the top, to go together. Musical tension of the upper shelf.

The concert ends with the impressive Sanctus from Gounod. Surely not. There follows an encore: “How Great Thou Art”, the song where Daniel is seen the world over on YouTube. A worthy end. There, the concert should end. But the performers will give more. There are two more encores: again the Chorus from Verdi and the last part of Sanctus.  Thanks to the many musical highlights of the “Singing Policeman”.

Songs for Support and Healing

Published: Friday, April 08, 2011, by Alice Tessier


Daniel Rodriguez has been singing for more than half his lifetime, but it was when he put his gift of voice to use in supporting heartfelt causes that it began to expand, technically as well as in reaching a large audience.

Mr. Rodriguez, who performed last Friday night in New Milford along with his wife, soprano Marla Kavanagh Rodriguez, was a New York City cop who, as a member of NYPD’s ceremonial unit, was singled out to sing the national anthem at official functions and became a voice of comfort for the city following the events of Sept. 11, 2001. He was on his way to work when the first tower of the World Trade Center fell, he has noted. He found himself in a major spotlight when he sang “God Bless America” at the Prayer for America program held March 23, 2001, at Yankee Stadium and went on to perform at many events remembering that time of national sorrow and those who lost their lives.

As a result, he caught the attention of an operatic superstar, tenor Placido Domingo, and had an opportunity to study with him.

Mr. Rodriguez, who retired from NYPD in 2003, is now is engaged in a career in music, with five CDs to his credit and a sixth due out soon. And he still uses his voice to help out in times of great difficulty.

The New Milford concert, at which donations were encouraged, was the beginning of “a mini-tour,” said his wife, to benefit families in Christchurch, New Zealand, which was victimized by two earthquakes.

Mrs. Rodriguez, an opera singer, pointed out that she is “a Kiwi,” the colloquial name for a New Zealander, and said she hails from Dunedin, near Christchurch.

“Not one life was lost in Christchurch” in the first earthquake but “many, many were lost” in the second one, according to Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker, in a short film that was presented at the beginning of the concert program and showed some of the relief efforts in the devastated city.

The second one, on Feb. 22, was of 6.3 magnitude and took place about six miles southeast of the center of Christchurch, the country’s second most populated city, according to Wikipedia. The previous one, about six months earlier, was of 7.1 magnitude but did not result in any loss of life.

Prime Minister John Key reportedly said that Feb. 22 “may well be New Zealand’s darkest day.”

“Thank God no one of my family was hurt,” Mrs. Rodriguez said, adding that scores of people, however, “lost their jobs and homes” as a result of both natural disasters.

She said they are now “going person to person … people to people” and that “we’ve chosen Adopt a Family” as the charity to which proceeds of their concerts will go, “because it gives to families in need.”

Information can be found online at http://www.adoptachristchurchfamily.com

The couple recently did a concert tour of “107 cities across the country, in nine months,” Mr. Rodriguez noted.

He said the purpose of the current tour is “to raise awareness of what is happening in New Zealand—and Japan,” acknowledging the major tragedy that occurred in northern Japan last month when a tsunami that followed an 8.9 magnitude quake March 11 led to widespread loss of life and property and mounting concerns as nuclear plants were damaged in what has reportedly been called “the worst nuclear disaster since World War II.”

Mr. Rodriguez said that their program, during which the couple performed singly and together, would undoubtedly strike an emotional chord but was also meant to be uplifting.

Among the selections following his opening song, “Amazing Grace,” were his wife’s rendition of an old hymn, “Saved by Grace,” with its poignant refrain, “I shall sing/from face to face/ and tell the stories/saved by grace.”

“Music and spirituality were independent of each other in my life, but after 9/11 it became clear that it was the source of healing and that became the focus of my life,” Mr. Rodriguez, who is scheduled to perform in a 10th anniversary concert in New York City, stated in a biographical note.

For more information, visit his Web site at http://www.danielrodriguezmusic.com

They were accompanied on keyboards by Jesse Lynch from Brooklyn, N.Y., whose forte is jazz. “I was raised classical but converted,” he quipped.

For more information about the pianist, visit online at http://www.jesselynch.com

On a more serious note, Mr. Lynch said, “Instead of checking my bank account at the end of the day, it’s nice to be here for a cause.”

9/11 cop holds concert for Pike River families

  

New York City policeman Daniel Rodriguez sings God Bless America at the opening ceremony of the Salt Lake 2002 Olympic Winter Games (Reuters file)
FRI, 21 JAN 2011 5:14A.M.

By Deanna Harris
The voice that “consoled a nation” following the events of 9/11 will be performing a free concert this weekend for the family and friends of the Pike River 29.
Daniel Rodriguez was a New York City cop during 9/11 10 years ago and became known as the “the singing policeman” who consoled a nation after he performed at the funerals of more than 100 police and fire brigade colleagues.
He also sang at the televised remembrance ceremony at Yankee Stadium.
Now he is to bring his tenor voice to Greymouth to perform in a free concert, From Our Family to Yours, this Saturday.
It was Mr Rodriguez’s New Zealand wife, soprano Marla Kavanaugh, and her twin sister Marissa’s idea to hold the concert after hearing about the tragic events that occurred at the Pike River mine.
“When she heard about the disaster she emailed some of the families and received some heartfelt responses,” he says.
The Kavanaugh sisters, also known as The Songbirds, have previously performed at the America’s Cup, Peter Jackson’s academy award celebrations for Lord Of the Rings in Los Angeles and were chosen to perform in Central Park, New York, at an official commemoration of 9/11.
The couple often travel to New Zealand to visit family and decided that this they would do something for the families of the 29 men lost in the mine during this visit.
“We decided that a concert would be the best way to express ourselves and music is what I had during the 9/11 tragedy.
“The connection I have with them is I have been through a tragic event myself,” he says.
He says from there it all fell into place with Air New Zealand, Kingsgate hotels and the Greymouth community all coming on board to help them with the concert.
Mr Rodriguez will be jointed by the Kavanaugh sisters – their mother, former Mobil Song Quest winner, Kathi Craig, TV actress and singer, Lisa Chappell (McLeod’s Daughters) and popular vocalist, Will Martin.
The group also held a sold out concert last Sunday in Palmerston North where $4800 was raised for Pike River families which will be added to the $3500 given by their Florida friends.
Mr Rodriguez is planning to stay in Greymouth for three days when he will hold a church service and meet the community who are still dealing with the Pike River tragedy and loss of the friends and family.
“I look forward to meeting with them and commiserating with them,” he says.
From Our Family to Yours is being held at Greymouth’s Holy Trinity Church this Saturday at 7:30pm.

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