Deborah Norin-Kuehn

Since her 1994 NYC debut, soprano Deborah Norin-Kuehn has dedicated her performance career to presenting contemporary vocal repertoire, premiering and interpreting works of our time, without neglecting the traditional fare. Regarding Norin-Kuehn’s UK premiere of Milton Babbitt’s Du, Phyllis Bryn Julson said, “She puts a little Schubert in her Babbitt, and vice versa.”

Norin-Kuehn has performed under the batons of Peter Bay, David Hayes, Aaron Jay Kernis, Oliver Knussen, and been featured throughout the US, Canada, China, England, France, Germany, and Italy with orchestras, ensembles and select artists including Collide-O-Scope, the Empyrean Ensemble, Ensemble 21, Opera Company of Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Singers, pianists Jeffrey Jacob, Margaret Kampmeier, Marilyn Nonken, and Thomas Rosenkranz. She has performed the roles of Pamina, Musetta, Mrs. Gobineau, and Anna Gomez on the opera stage, has been guest artist at the Eastman School of Music and at such venues and festivals as the BGSU New Music Festival, Composers, Inc., Convergence (MTI-2 Institute for Sonic Creativity), June in Buffalo, and the NYC Electroacoustic Music Festival. Her discography features recordings on the Living Artist, New Focus, Open Space and SEAMUS labels.

A student of the late Todd Duncan, Gershwin’s original Porgy, at the Curtis Institute of Music (Artist Diploma), Norin-Kuehn holds graduate degrees from the Eastman School of Music. She has been a college voice professor and private teacher for over three decades. Her college students have received talent-based scholarships to fine graduate voice performance programs at Eastman and the New England Conservatory. Her private students, mainly high school singers interested in Musical Theatre, have received talent-based scholarships to prestigious undergraduate music and musical theatre programs at Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory, Berklee, Boston Conservatory, Hartt School, Marymount Manhattan University, New England Conservatory, NYU (Tisch), Northwestern, Norwalk Conservatory of the Arts (Acting and Film), Oberlin, Pace, Point Park, University of North Carolina Greensboro, and Wright State University.

Deborah enjoys adjudicating at voice competitions, presenting vocal master classes, and giving her talk on The Evolution of the 24 Italian “Hits.”