Daniel Reyes: The Music Within

By: Elizabeth Churchill (25’)

“A lot of music, a lot of arts, a lot of craziness.”

Approaching the end of his time at Albright College, Daniel Reyes reflects on his dedication utilizing the most of his theatre and vocal performance co-major. Albright Chorale and Ensembles, Domino Players, Improv, and Lion Records are a few of the organizations Reyes has found himself in.

“I’ve been in a bunch of plays and musicals, mainstage shows, I would just crank them out. Sometimes it would be all of them, sometimes just two a year.”

While fond of the realm of performing, Reyes also has scene shop experience in constructing set designs of various Domino Players

productions. In his own time, he is working on an album to be released by Lion Records. In the local sphere, Reyes has performed with Berks Opera Company, who has partnered

Reyes as Witch in Hänsel and Gretel with Berks Opera Company and Albright College Vocal Performance Program with students from Albright’s Vocal Performance co-major for productions such as Amahl and the Night Visitors, Hänsel and Gretel, and Little Red’s Most Unusual Day.

Arriving as a psychology and political science co-major, Reyes admits he found himself on this path due to a lack of understanding of the depth of Albright’s arts programs, and a concern to find careers post college in more ‘applicable’ fields.

He thanks Professor Jeffrey Lentz, M.M for initially meeting him, representing the theatre department, and helping him to find his path of interest.

“I’m not the first musician in my family, but there was ’this can be a hobby’...’why not just take lessons on the side’...’be a teacher and then do shows in the summer’...one of the hardest things was having to prove myself, and they were supporting me but it they had no way to understand.”

With the guidance of Professor Tamara Black, M.M, Reyes studied at the Austrian American Mozart Academy in Salzburg, Austria over the summer of 2024. “That kind of cemented my love of opera and that part of musical arts, just because everyone had so much passion and it showed me that it’s not a dead art. There is a career after college.”

Reyes credits his adaptability to the voice lessons, German language study, and performances he was able to experience by enrolling in a liberal arts college. He says that being at a school like Albright allowed him to grow in all areas, not only in musicianship. This helped him stand out among his peers at AAMA.

“Because you’re not in a conservatory, you don’t have a huge list of repertoire, and you haven’t only been doing music and theatre —but there’s general academics and acting training. The benefit [of conservatories]is you have things to pull from and a deep knowledge of music, but there’s a lack of broad experience.”

Reyes’s performed in his final mainstage show from April 11-14. He played the role of Henrik Egerman in Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music directed by Jeffrey Lentz. Additionally, he’ll be performing in the Melodies of Spring choral concert on May 3. While he searches for graduate schools, he plans to continue performing both in the immediate future and well beyond.