John David De Haan

John David De Haan, internationally acclaimed lyric and heroic tenor, is an associate professor of voice in the school of music at the University of Minnesota, where he chairs the applied area and teaches voice and diction to doctoral students. He has performed in leading opera houses and other world famous venues to critical acclaim and can be heard on several recordings of opera and other works on major labels, including Decca, Sony, and Naxos.

De Haan's repertoire spans both traditional and more recently composed music. One of his more recent recordings is Songs, available from Naxos Records, which features solo vocal compositions by Dave Brubeck, with the composer at the piano for seven of the songs.

Other Naxos recordings include Willie the Weeper by Jerome Moross, featuring De Haan singing the title role, and the world premier of Stephen Hartke's The Greater Good at Glimmerglass Opera, where he sang the leading tenor role. De Haan sang as Stranger in the premier recording of Erich Wolfgang Korngold's Das Wunder der Helaine, Op.27, on Decca's acclaimed Entartete series, which is devoted to performances of suppressed or forbidden music during the first half of the 20^th century.

For four years, De Haan was a principal artist with the Duetsch Oper Berlin, singing leading roles in numerous productions, including Florestan in Fidelio, Macduff in Macbeth, Hans Schwalb in Mathis der Mahler, and the tenor in Beethoven's Symphony No. 9. He has appeared as a soloist in a number of tenor roles with the San Francisco, Seattle, Indianapolis, Netherlands, Scottish, Santa Fe, and other operas. He has also performed as a soloist with the Montreal, Detroit, National, and San Francisco Symphonies.

In 2000 he sang in a Nebraska Educational Television production of Divine Madness, an opera written for him by Randall Snyder. Other recent appearances have included performing as the Drum Major in Wozzeck by the Pacific Opera Victoria and in productions of Elijah in Tokyo and Der Fliegende Hollander at Opera Carolina and L'Opera Montreal.

Beginning in 1995, De Haan began working with promising students chosen from prestige artist and apprenticeship programs. His students have successfully competed on all levels in Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, with several advancing to the national finals in New York. Many are now enjoying successful careers in opera and on recital and concert hall stages. Before coming to UM, he taught at the Pacific Conservatory in Stockton, California.

A 1981 graduate of Union College, Lincoln, Nebraska, where he studied with Lynn Wickham, De Haan was one of 21 seniors at the college chosen to be listed that year in Who's Who in American Colleges and Universities. He then completed an M.Mus. and pursued additional graduate study at the University of Nebraska. From 1985 to 1995, he sang full time in opera productions, mostly in Europe. In addition to teaching at UM, he is also Director of Music at Judson Memorial Baptist Church in Minneapolis.

De Haan has received numerous awards, including the Karl Kritz Award at the Grand Finals of the Metropolitan Opera Program, San Francisco Opera, in 1985; an Adler Fellowship with the San Francisco Opera in 1985; Eleanor Steber Music Foundation Mozart Award in 1987; a Career Grant from the Wagner Society in 1990; and a "Master" award from the University of Nebraska in 1997.

ds/2012

Sources: Biographies at the University of Minnesota School of Music website and on printed programs; Mid-America Adventist Outlook, 22 January 1981, 10; 3 May 1984, 6; Judson Memorial Baptist Church website; Other Online Sources; personal knowledge..

Discography

(A partial listing)

Beatrice di Tenda, Vincenzo Bellini 1995

Beatrice Cenci, Berthold Goldschmidt, Sony 1995

Das Wunder der Heliane, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Decca 2002

Frankie and Johnny; Those Everlasting Blues; Willie the Weeper; Jerome Morose, Naxos Records 2002

Pilgrims Progress: Pioneers of American Classical Music, Naxos Records 2003

Songs, David Brubeck, Naxos Records 2005

The Greater Good, Stephen Hartke, Naxos Records 2007