In addition to launching our Cabaret Series this June, he has performed with multiple local theaters, including Washington National Opera, soloed with Cantate and other choral groups, and has also served as a Music Director for several children’s theaters in the Washington DC metropolitan area. Daniel is also a professor at Howard University in the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts. Smith. He received his Bachelor of Science in Music Business from Winston-Salem State University. Daniel is also a proud alum of George Mason University, with a Master of Music in Vocal Performance.

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Expansive and enthusiastic in his approach, he makes himself emotionally available to whatever role and musical composition asks of him. He is generous to fellow artists and students alike. Daniel has a passion and love for sharing his gifts and helping others to discover and cultivate their own. 

Recently, we got to converse about our common interests. Entrepreneurship, that’s where we started.

Daniel: Most people don’t know my background is in Music Business. I’m very driven to the Business side. I’m interested in making sure that artists get paid. Even growing up, I worked first as a Minister of Music. The concept of working for myself and making my own rules has always been part of who I am. It helps me stay organized and I believe influences my artistry. My focus was Marketing and Merchandizing, and I can do it well for everybody else…

Daniel, we both like to support artists in their development.  So tell me how you came to think of yourself as a singer?

I never thought I would be a performer until grad school. I studied one summer on the Amalfi Coast with my voice teacher, Patricia Miller, and I was hooked on singing opera. Singing with an orchestra and without a mic I felt such power and I wanted to go after that.

With amplified music, it requires more work while singing opera sets my voice free. Singing musical theater, the orchestra sound in most DC theaters comes from behind, and it’s hard to hear through such a wall of sound. There are a few rare spaces -- George Mason Theater in Manassas, the Hylton Performing Arts Center, is the best -- designed beautifully for voices.

What kind of music-theater do you most love to express?

I love things out of the box.  I don’t’ mean atonal music though I have an appreciation for it, I don’t particularly like singing it. It takes a long time to get it into my body. I like mixed genres, bringing different elements together, because that’s who I am as a person. Having a background growing up in a Baptist Church, so even singing an Italian aria, my church upbringing will have some influence, and if I’m singing R&B it’s going to have something of a classical approach in it. I love teaching that way too, which I think helps students open up to different parts of themselves.

This “crossover” of influences and identities is how it works in real life. I don’t want to leave parts of me behind. I shouldn’t have to. The birth of what we consider Black music genres – spirituals and gospels – feeds all our popular music forms.

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Read more of the interview HERE.