VocalEssence – Philip Brunelle, artistic director

Tenor Dan Dressen is a professor of music at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. His operatic experience includes roles with Washington Opera, Cleveland Lyric Opera and several roles with The Minnesota Opera, including the world premiere of Ricky Ian Gordon’s The Grapes of Wrath. He has also performed with The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Minnesota Chorale, Dale Warland Singers, Metropolitan Symphony, North Star Opera and Nautilus Music-Theater, and has appeared several times with Garrison Keillor on A Prairie Home Companion.

Dan has sung with VocalEssence for over twenty-five years and is featured in its recordings of Benjamin Britten’s Paul Bunyan and Aaron Copland’s The Tender Land. Dan joined VocalEssence for the world premiere of Francis Grier’s The Passion of Jesus of Nazareth in 2006 and sang in William Bolcom’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience in 2007. In 2008, he sang with VocalEssence at its "40th Birthday Party with Garrison Keillor."

Dan earned a B.S. from Bemidji State University and an M.F.A. and D.M.A. from the University of Minnesota. He was a voice student of Roy Schuessler and has coached with Gerard Souzay at The Ravel International Academy of Music in France and with Sir Peter Pears and Eleanor Steber.