Daniel Rodriguez Media Archives

2010 media                                                                                                      Official website

Rochester NY, Sept 2010

VOICE OF AMERICA

Every performance is special for tenor Daniel Rodriguez. It's a chance for him to follow his passion. When that pursuit finds him performing on

Sept. 11, it takes on an added significance.

Rodriguez, a beloved singer known as both "America's Tenor" and "The Singing Policeman," is the former New York City cop who consoled a nation with his voice and a stirring rendition of "God Bless America" after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"I began in music and always wanted to sing. It was my first love," Rodriguez said in a recent telephone interview. "Now, I'm following my passion in a way that makes me significant in the country. My career is not just as a singer, but as a singer who rose out of tragedy to help people."

This Sept. 11 will find Rodriguez performing as part of the Roberts Wesleyan College-Community Orchestra's season-opening concert. The performance, scheduled for 7:30 p.m. in Hale Auditorium of the Roberts Cultural Life Center, will honor service men and women with a mix of patriotic and Broadway selections. Rodriguez will be joined by his wife, opera singer Marla Kavanaugh, and jazz pianist Jesse Lynch.

"I think I reflect more on 9/11" when performing on that date, said Rodriguez, who plans to dedicate a song or two to police and fire personnel. Among the possibilities, he said, are "wonderful, triumphant songs" such as "Bring Him Home" from "Les Miserables," "Into the Fire" and "Stout-hearted Men."

"The idea that Roberts Wesleyan would do this as a tribute to fire and police officers is a wonderful thing," said Rodriguez, who previsouly peformed with the RWC-C on March 3, 2007. (Other area dates have included Kingdom Bound and with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra in 2002.)

Rodriguez' career has been forged from the ashes of the 2001 terrorist attacks that destroyed New York's World Trade Center. But Rodriguez, who was on duty and lost several friends in the attack, did not suddenly discover his love of singing after the tragedy.

Rodriguez is the son and grandson of tenors and began singing in his youth. At 16, he presented his first recital at Carnegie Hall. But by 19 or 20 years old, he put music aside -- though never far behind, he said -- to raise his family. For years, he did any job that would help pay the bills: short order cook, cabbie, truck driver, and eventually New York City police officer.

"I had my 9-to-5 day jobs and on evenings and weekends I sang," he said. "Until the time that fate intervened."

Rodriguez had become the go-to singer for police department events before 2001. He performed so much, he said, that he had the White House, the governor's office and the mayor on speed-dial

After the attacks, he performed at many memorials and gained attention from the rest of the country through nationally-televised performances. His big break came a year later, when Spanish tenor Placido Domingo accepted Rodriguez -- then 38 years old -- into Domingo's first young artists class. Several albums and high-profile performances have followed.

Rodriguez retired from the NYPD in June 2004 and said with the passage of time he has come to see his career as one of the bright spots from a dark day, that included attacks on the Pentagon and the crash of a hijacked plane in rural Pennsylvania.

The singer continues to explore his emotions through the "Amazing Grace Experience," a documentary project led by his brother-in-law Simon Dikkenberg, a filmmaker and digital media specialist.

Rodriguez had started a book about the positive things that came out of the attacks, when Dikkenberg suggested they tell the story visually. The project began with a visit to Ground Zero, where the World Trade Center's Twin Towers once stood.

"I realized there was a lot of emotional obstacles and I was still carry them around," Rodriguez said. "That begin a journey. For forgiveness and freedom. Those are the goals of the documentary."

The documentary, parts of which have been released this week at www.find912.com, includes interviews with Cardinal Edward Egan, archbishop emeritus of New York, colleagues and other first responders and family members. The interviews, Rodriguez said, "are very open, very revealing. At the same time, they are very difficult, very exposed."

Some of the subjects, talk about how they have been able to forgive those behind the attacks.

"These are very powerful messages that really help my own journey," Rodriguez said. "I use their experiences and ability to forgive to map out my own journey to getting past the garbage of 9/11.

"This documentary is only the beginning of the journey," he said. "But only by exposing fear, anger and unwillingness to forgive at the beginning can we begin. If we don't learn to forgive, we won't learn to overcome those emotions and we become like those who terrorize."

http://thedailynewsonline.com/entertainment/article_c4f622c6-313d-5620-852a-26eaf4f45a63.html

'Singing policeman' adds Lodi to list of places uplifted

By Tony Sauro, Record Staff Writer, February 15, 2010

Daniel Rodriguez was a singer long before he became a policeman. It's an important distinction.

Rodriguez, widely known as the "singing policeman" after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist strikes on America, actually was a classically trained vocalist who'd become a New York City cop partly because he couldn't get a regular opera or Broadway gig. "Hey, I had to feed my family," he said.

Which doesn't mean he's dissociated himself from the crucial role he played in calming - even inspiring - people in the fearfully uncertain aftermath of 9/11.

He sang "The Star Spangled Banner" and "God Bless America" at countless events, for three presidents and two princes, on late-night TV and at the Rose Parade and myriad charitable events - becoming closely identified with the 9/11 recovery.

"It had an amazing impact emotionally and negatively," said Rodriguez, 45, whose life was saved when he took a left turn that fateful day. "It's been extremely more positive than negative. The really positive thing is we came out of it and continue to live positively. We rose from the tragedy."

It's still a source of sobering inspiration as Rodriguez - now an ex-cop - pursues a full-time singing career.

"I'm seeing some amazing, beautiful places," said the bell canto tenor, whose first national tour is taking him to 107 American communities. "Right now, I'm looking at beautiful skylines of mountains. A majestic view.

"This has opened my heart to places and venues that don't ever get the caliber of show we're putting on. I'm trying to give them as much as I can."

He was calling from Bullhead City, Ariz. He performs tonight at Lodi's Hutchins Street Square.

Rodriguez still has a major role at New York's Metropolitan Opera House or on Broadway on his to-achieve list.

On tour, he sings a varied repertoire, sharing the stage with his wife, New Zealand-born Marla Kavanaugh, and her twin sister, Marissa - soprano vocalists who've recorded an album ("Songbirds") on which Rodriguez is the executive producer - and New York pianist Jesse Lynch.

"I tell a story that has as much to do with the 'singing policeman' - before and after 9/11," Rodriguez said of his two-hour show. "The story before that is basically about day-to-day growing up in a house, singing with my mother and father."

That story began in a musical Brooklyn, N.Y., home. Inspired by his Puerto Rican-born parents, Enrico Caruso, Mario Lanza and a high school drama teacher (Elliott Dorfman), he also took demanding private lessons for 10 years, sang in school groups and made his Carnegie Hall debut at 17 with Manhattan's Youth Repertory Company.

At 20, after attending Brooklyn's Kingsborough Community College, he "started a family and had to go out and get a real job."

After four or five years of "trying to find work and being miserable" at a variety of jobs (cook, caterer, taxi driver), he became a post office mail handler and started singing with a piano-playing friend anywhere possible - churches, nightclubs, cocktail lounges.

He was doing "anything I could to get hired," performing tunes by Lanza, Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald, and other pop vocalists in his self-produced "Broadway Magic" show.

Still frustrated, he became a police officer in 1994 - he'd passed police and firefighter tests while unemployed - singing at his own graduation. During his 10 years on duty, he patrolled the Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, district near south Manhattan and was one of four official NYPD national anthem singers.

He was rejected in a Metropolitan Opera tryout but later studied opera for 18 months at Spanish tenor Placido Domingo's institute in Washington.

Rodriguez was off duty and heading across the Verazzano-Narrows Bridge from Brooklyn to Staten Island the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. He flashed his badge and pulled into a caravan of unmarked police cruisers and first responders. They wound up rushing through the Holland Tunnel to the Twin Towers in lower Manhattan.

Instead of turning right - two blocks north of Ground Zero - he turned left, heading to police headquarters for instructions.

"That decision saved my life," he said.

Next thing he knew, he was flying in a chopper to "A Prayer for America," a Sept. 23, 2001, memorial at Yankee Stadium, where he sang "God Bless America." The recording (along with those of Ronan Tynan and Kate Smith) still is played during the seventh inning of Yankees baseball games.

"I remember how the world became a small place in the days after 9/11," said Rodriguez, who's now collecting funds for Haitian earthquake relief. "That unification and global spirituality is what we try to perpetuate and make happen in our show."

Rodriguez, who's recorded three albums and performed at venues as disparate as the Indianapolis 500, Carnegie Hall, West Point, Jay Leno's "Tonight Show" and Glendale's Crystal Cathedral, considers music a ministry and gets lots of thankful e-mails after his music is heard.

A guy who "didn't do auditions," he had to pay his own way to Nashville, Tenn., to try out for a Live on stage, Inc. tour. After years of limos and private jets, he was humbled.

"My wife said, 'Hey, big guy, you know better than that. Get out there,' " Rodriguez said with a laugh. He wound up with the longest tour (including Lodi) ever booked by the company.

Rodriguez seemed amused - but re-energized - by the "nice novelty" that he's gone from the jet-setting of symphony performances and post-9/11 visibility to driving himself around the country.

"We're almost halfway through," said Rodriguez, whose 13-month-old daughter is touring with him. "It's the first time being in city after city, day after day, being in a van with a U-Haul and your family in tow. It's been absolutely liberating. I'm having an amazing time.

"It really gives you a sense of true freedom. It's like (this) is what I've always been meant to do. With every fiber of my being. It's an amazing experience."

Originating a role on Broadway and singing opera in an "A" house ("like San Francisco; the Met's not necessarily my crown jewel") remain on his A-list. He doesn't subscribe to the either-or axiom about Broadway and opera vocalists.

"Who says I can't do both?" said Rodriguez. "My voice is just getting to the point where I can trust it all the time. It's better than ever. I've started pushing my career into my direction. Before, I was lax and I'd follow where I was led. I'm now leading myself ... and trying to do things God has in store for me."

Whether it's opera, Broadway or touring in a van.

"If those come for me, it's fine," Rodriguez said. "I just want to continue doing what I'm doing - make music, make a difference and make people happy for the rest of my life.

"I can't do any more but teach young people to carry on the ideal of being positive and spiritual in everything you do. You're only limited by the limitations you put on yourself."