Daniel Akerman:
CLASS OF 1993
Albany High SchoolClass of 1993
Albany, CA
Daniel's Story
Life
As most of you probably remember, I was very much into theater and music during my time at AHS -- performing in all the school musicals and participating in the Concert Choir. Since graduating, I have continued my work in music and on the stage, and make my living now as a professional musician. I went to San Francisco State for a Bachelor of Music degree and have continued to perform regularly over the past 12 years with many Bay Area opera companies, including Berkeley Opera, Livermore Opera, Pocket Opera and others. The last two years, I have been singing with San Francisco Opera, where I have had the opportunity to understudy minor roles and supporting roles. Last season, when the person I was understudy for fell ill, I had the chance to sing a supporting role in Billy Budd for the entire rehearsal run and was able to sing for Maestro Donald Runnicles and the Opera's general director, Pamela Rosenberg, who later congratulated me on my work (wooooohooooo!) I left San Francisco Opera in December, 2004 to further pursue a career as an operatic soloist in NYC. It's a scary move, but I'm hoping it leads to much bigger and better things.
I haven't married or had any kids. In fact, at the moment, I'm completely single. I've just been focused on my career and music. I'm living in San Francisco, but will be moving to NY in September 2005, where I'll be living with George Kasarjian, who has remained my best friend all these years.
Dan
College
After high school, I spent about 6 or 7 months down in the Santa Cruz area, taking classes at Cabrillo College in Aptos and working at U.C. Santa Cruz. Those wer...Expand for more
e some hard months, with not many friends around, even less money, and no real social scene. At the same time, I had gotten my first professional singing job (at the Bracebridge Dinners in Yosemite), and rehearsals were every weekend in San Francisco. So I was driving up to SF every weekend and then driving back on Sunday nights. After a while I realized that I was miserable in Santa Cruz, so I decided to move back to the Bay Area that December at the end of finals. with my last $2 worth of gas in the car, I rolled back into Albany on fumes. LOL
Harder times followed, including a short stretch living out of my car, but soon I was back on my feet. I found a place to stay in Oakland and would spend my evenings visiting George Kasarjian over at the Clark Kerr campus of U.C. Berkeley, where I got to know and become good friends with some of the people he hung out with there. I remember many evenings spent at the International House drinking capuccinos, eating tapas, and having long, heated discussions with George and our buddy Jay. After a couple of years, George decided to drop out and head for Italy. By this time I had spent a little time at Laney College (what a pit), and then moved on to San Francisco State, where I was originally a theater major and then changed to music.
I met a great girl right around that time, and I ended up moving into her place in San Francisco. That's when I fell in love with The City. The relationship lasted about a year and a half, but I loved San Francisco enough to want to stay. After moving back home for a little while, I moved back to San Francisco and have been here ever since.
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