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Norm played"Moon River" with the Roseville Big Band. |
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Norm played a piano solo on "Route 66". |
Norm was featured with the Roseville Big Band at "Putting on the Ritz", March 10, 2001, playing piano solos on "Satin Doll", "Woodchopper's Ball", "Moon River", and "Route 66". He was also featured on "Satin Doll" and "Sanduga" at the March 1, 2003, "Putting on the Ritz" fundraiser for the Roseville Area High School music program. Occasionally when director Glen Newton was out of town, he led rehearsals of the Roseville Big Band.
Norm earned his B.A. in music from Hamline University and his M.A. from the University of Minnesota.
Norm was a band and classroom music teacher in Westbrook, Minnesota, from 1957 to 1959, then band director at Orono High School from 1959 to 1963 before serving as a band director in the Roseville Area Schools from 1963 until his retirement in 1993. School Musician magazine honored Norm as one of the outstanding music educators in the United States.
Norm began his Roseville teaching career at Fairview Junior High School, replacing Mark Lammers. During one of his Fairview years, he also taught at Brimhall and Lauderdale Elementary Schools. In 1982, he moved to Kellogg High School, then taught at both the East Campus (Kellogg) and West Campus (Ramsey) as the Roseville schools reorganized. In 1987 he moved to the Roseville Area Middle School in the building that formerly housed Kellogg High School. At each school throughout his career, Norm directed the ninth grade bands.
As band director at Fairview Junior High and Roseville Area Middle School, Norm gave many students their first jazz band performing experience.
Norm played piano in the Classic Big Band, the Don Riggs Orchestra (formerly the Dean Olson Orchestra) and the combo that began as the Dick Roberts Orchestra. He also played principal trumpet in the Northeast orchestra, based in Fridley, Minnesota, and did free-lance performing on piano and trumpet.
Norm died May 19, 2012, at the age of 76.