Dan Dressen

Equally at home in opera, concert and recital repertoire, tenor, Dan Dressen has built a reputation for impassioned and intelligent singing that the Minneapolis Star Tribune portrayed as “warm and full-bodied that brings real depth” and Opera News described as “lyrical and clear”.  His eclectic career includes appearances with Washington Opera (world premiere of Dominick Argento’s Dream of Valentino), Cleveland Lyric Opera (La bohème) and the Minnesota Opera, with whom he has numerous productions to his credit that include the roles of Marquis de Lisle in Casanova’s Homecoming by Argento, Elcius in Keisers’s The Fortunes of Croesus, Valzacchi in Der Rosenkavalier and Sellem in The Rake’s Progress.  Other stage performances include productions with Nautilus Music Theatre, Midwest Opera Theater, Northstar Opera and Estudio Polifonico de Medellin Colombia.  His concert and recital work includes performances with the Minnesota Orchestra, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Aldeburgh Festival, Oregon Bach Festival, the Schubert Club and the Minnesota Chorale.  He has a long and active relationship with VocalEssence that includes performances of over fifty works, including the tenor solos in There was a Child (Dove), Jonah and the Whale (Argento), Songs of Innocence and Experience (Bolcom), St. Nicolas Cantata (Britten), Samson (Handel) and Dies natalis (Finzi).  Previous recordings include Ricky Ian Gordon’s The Grapes of Wrath, The Celestial Country of Charles Ives, the role of Martin in The Tender Land (Copland) and Johnny Inkslinger in Britten’s Paul Bunyan.  He is in his forty-seventh year as tenor soloist at Plymouth Congregational Church of Minneapolis. 

As Professor of Music - Emeritus, Dr. Dressen recently completed forty years on the faculty at St. Olaf College.  In addition to teaching voice, lyric diction and in the lyric theater program, he served for ten years as the Music Department Chair, six years as the Associate Dean for the Fine Arts and nine years as the College’s Associate Provost. He recently completed a term as President of the National Association of Schools of Music (NASM), following terms as Vice President, Chair and Associate Chair of the Commission on Accreditation.  In Northfield Minnesota, he served for several years on the Arts and Culture Commission and on the Board of the Northfield Youth Choirs, including two years as its President and currently serves on the Board for the Northfield Arts Guild.  In addition, he serves on the boards of VocalEssence, Source Song, Edvard Grieg Society and the Board for the Arts at Plymouth Congregational Church.

Dr. Dressen’s scholarly focus in the last dozen years has been Nordic song and he has endeavored to increase the St. Olaf Library collection of resources in this area.  He edited a seven-volume series of opera arias by Benjamin Britten for the publisher Boosey and Hawkes.