Today we’d like to introduce you to Daniel Oberman.
Hi Daniel, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I’m a self-taught musician, artist, composer, songwriter & playwright. I grew up outside of Chicago and music, theater, opera, etc, have always been outlets that I feel really cut through all the chaos and noise of the world around me. I have always had a strong ear but never been a traditional learner so at the age of 10, when I heard the Chicago symphony playing on public access, I went right to the piano the next morning and began figuring out the melodies, chords, etc., and there was no going back after that. I would sit for hours improvising and becoming an artist was not a choice. People ask me how I got into music. I always respond by saying, music got into me and I got lost in the music. For me personally, music is therapy. Music penetrates deeper than blood, and bone, spirit, mind and soul. The art of Living is that art doesn’t imitate life, art… is life and the stories told are about real people in real-time, living, breathing, working, building, breaking, falling apart and picking up the pieces, and hopefully being there for each other becoming extraordinary in the most ordinary of times. I should mention that I do have synesthesia, which means that when I hear sound I see shapes and colors, which definitely shapes how I feel empowered as an activist, individual, and plays a pivotal role in my development as an artist and in my collaborations with other artists in a wide variety of mediums, from the work I do in film and tv, to writing musicals, performing live on stage.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Smooth is relative. I have autism which I say because coming to myself as an individual is fundamental to the core of who I am as an Artist. Sometimes what looks like a diagonal line to some is the most direct way between two points for others. The artist in me is inextricably to individual and my art grows out of my activism, I say this because I am an adult Survivor of complex childhood trauma, BUT I am so much more than this! I am inspired to lend my voice to the cause of those who feel they have lost their own. To thine own-self be true. Facing brutal honesty with kindness, truthfully!
The challenge I face is the challenge I think all of us face. We all break apart, and we all have a choice as to how we choose to break open. The challenge is finding the courage to be human and connect with others is their experiences as well. When we stand beside one another, make room for each other, and hold space everyone’s goodwill I know we will find hope to find the courage to come together in the name of all we love, as a collective, instead of standing against all that which we hate. So the short answer is no it has not always been smooth, but I have never been someone who shy’s away from the challenge of facing myself and the challenges disguised as obstacles along the road I walk.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
My music is all about vocal empowerment and discovering hope beyond the chaos of others and love because of the madness, not lost despite it, left to fight the darkness others may have left us with. I hope that anyone listening hears my heart through the music and finds some of their own voice in what I create, that whomever out there is listening and feels along, hurting, and searching for ways to heal and feel connect, appreciate the road we are all walking back to ourselves, and feel empowered to speak, and have our stories heard because no one has the ability to take our voices from us, more than we have the ability to speak or remain silent. As an adult who was recently diagnosed with Autism and overmedicated as having adhd as a child, I where my heart on my sleeve and my heart and soul are balanced between every chord and every rhythm, every lyric and each melody, and is all aimed at appreciating that everyone is deserving of feeling connected and being counted. You matter. I matter. We matter. One for all and all for one.
What were you like growing up?
Growing up, I unfortunately struggled. I won’t say I am a product of the ’80s because I am a product by design,. However growing up in that era and in my home especially, I was not given a choice over what did and did not go into my body and was not given the right to come into my physiology on my own terms. I was specific about my wishes and those wishes that I not be diagnosed in the first place as my physiology is not up for debate and certain not the right of any caregiver to decide for me. I say this because being the survivor of complex childhood trauma gives me a unique perspective on love, on what it means to be a family, that it matters how I show up for a stranger as deeply as it matters how I show up for a friend.
I will admit that having synesthesia, I see colors and shapes when I hear sound, makes interactions both as interesting to me as they can be overwhelming at times. Every person I meet has colors that are as fluid as they are uniquely their own, sometimes vibrant, sometimes dull, and sometimes in between and all at once, all the time. There is no shut-off valve.
Music is my therapy and my way through the traumas that helped shape me. As a child, because I had to adapt so much depending on who was in the room, I discovered that improv is the best place to start from when it comes to my art, and as a child, I would sit and improvise for hours and at on point, my parents locked the piano, to which I responded my jimmying it open with a Phillips head screwdriver. I was very loving as a child but also deeply valued my autonomy, and that my straight line looked like a diagonal to all those around me. I dance with trees, I arrange sticks on the ground in the shapes of smiley faces when I walk by. I wave to the cars in traffic going the opposite way because I want them to feel like someone is thinking of them and wishing them a happy commute to wherever it is they’re headed.
And has always been the most direct route to my heart beyond my mind’s need to know and have control. As a child, I could feel the longing and yearning of practically everyone one around me and felt the overwhelming desire to simply hug them. It never mattered to me who they were because I saw their colors and knew that trusting my gut meant opening my heart to strangers because I like making friends. Needless to say, my parents were less than thrilled, and nevertheless, I was not one to let that stop me from giving a hug to a stranger who I could see was hurting. I am endlessly curious, I love to make everyone laugh, and I am fiercely loyal. As a child, I could always connect to animals in ways I had hoped to connect to all those around me.
I grew up outside of Chicago, the youngest of four brothers, in a Jewish family north of the city, and I loved growing up there. Though I struggled, I always had me to go back to and I have an imagination that never quits which I am so grateful to have held onto through all of it.
Being that I am from Chicago I would be remiss if I did give a shout-out to Lou Malnati’s Pizza, the best deep dish and the best pizza. They air deliver and it is no joke!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.danieloberman.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/danieloberman/?hl=en
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/daniel.oberman.58?mibextid=LQQJ4d
- Youtube: www.youtube.com/channel/UC9H9L5A9TXaFi6s4127CIHA
- SoundCloud: http://hon.soundcloud.com/GkuTeU6FqTACKa1S9
