Norm Freeman has earned Bachelors and Masters of music degrees from The Juilliard School, and a Master of Divinity degree from the General Theological Seminary, New York. Norm currently resides in Santa Barbara, California where he performs with the Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra, Choral Society and Symphony. He also serves as the Episcopal chaplain for the University of California at Santa Barbara and vicar of St. Michael and All Angels Church. Norm commutes to New York for concerts with The New York Pops, Orchestra of St. Luke, New Jersey Symphony, and the Dance Theater of Harlem.
Norm's musical career includes performances with the New York Philharmonic, Barbra Streisand's 1994 Concert Tour, the Jesse Norman / Kathleen Battle spirituals concert, the 1999 MTV Music Video Awards, Saturday Night Live with Pavarotti and Vanessa Williams, Metallica, numerous Broadway shows, the New York premiere of Paul McCartney's "Standing Stone" with the Orchestra of St. Luke's, and Jesse Norman's Christmas CD, "In the Spirit." New York Pops music director, Skitch Henderson, commissioned Pulitzer Prize winning composer Melinda Wagner to write for the 2004 season's opening concert at Carnegie Hall. The composition, entitled "57/7 Dash," featured Norm on Yamaha timpani along with the members of the orchestra's percussion section; Sherrie Maricle, Jim Saporito and Barry Centanni as soloists.
Norm served for eleven years as Percussion Department chair at Mannes College of Music, a division of the New School for Social Research in Manhattan. He has performed on four Grammy-nominated projects, including the Grammy Award-winning New York Philharmonic recording of Mahler: Symphony No. 3 in D Minor, conducted by Leonard Bernstein. In 1999 the Jazz Vespers that vibraphonist and priest Norm Freeman introduced at St. Paul's Church in Greenwich, Connecticut inspired a full-page story in the Sunday edition of The New York Times entitled, "Where Music and the Ministry Merge."
