Norm Freeman's musical career includes performances with the New York Philharmonic, concert tours with Barbra Streisand from 1994-2017, performances as timpanist of The New York Pops from 1983-2018, a performance at the 1999 MTV Video Music Awards, a Saturday Night Live performance with Luciano Pavarotti and Vanessa Williams, performances with Metallica in concert, numerous Broadway shows, the New York premiere of Paul McCartney's Standing Stone with the Orchestra of St. Luke's and recording with Jessye Norman on her Christmas CD entitled In the Spirit.
Norm served for eleven years as Percussion Department Chair at the Mannes School of Music, a division of The New School in Manhattan. He has performed on multiple Grammy-nominated projects, including the Grammy Award-winning New York Philharmonic recording entitled Mahler: Symphony No. 3 in D Minor conducted by Leonard Bernstein. Norm, a veteran of the Barbra Streisand rhythm section, played on Barbra Streisand - Live in Concert 2006, which won an Emmy Award for Music Director Bill Ross. Norm can be seen on Netflix's Barbra: The Music...The Mem'ries...The Magic!
On October 22, 2004, Norm performed the world premiere of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Melinda Wagner's "57/7 Dash" at Carnegie Hall with The New York Pops under the direction of Skitch Henderson. Maestro Henderson commissioned the work, featuring Norm and the orchestra's percussion section. Norm's duo N2K with violinist Katherine Cash was an overnight sensation and offers recitals, lectures, master classes and residencies. Norm is a Yamaha Performing Artist.
In 1999, the Jazz Vespers (a group that Norm began in Riverside, CT) inspired a full-page story in the Sunday edition of The New York Times entitled "Where Music and the Ministry Merge."
Norm earned a Bachelor of Music and a Master of Music from The Juilliard School and a Master of Divinity from The General Theological Seminary in New York.
