David A. Norville
About
Me
David Norville is a media producer, oboist, and cultural changemaker exploring how sound, storytelling, and social strategy can reimagine the role of art in building a more empathetic world.
A founding member of the Black Orchestral Network, Norville has been instrumental in national conversations around equity and representation in classical music, helping to shape policy and community frameworks that uplift Black musicians and reframe the narrative of access in American orchestras. His work with Every Voice with Terrance McKnight at New York Public Radio—recognized as a Webby Award Honoree and winner of two Black Podcasting Awards—bridges historical inquiry with creative storytelling to illuminate how music both reflects and reshapes society.
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Through his company Focus On Your Art, David supports artists, organizations, and cultural movements in telling stories that educate, inspire, and empower. His podcast, Black Music Seen, celebrates the journeys of Black orchestral musicians whose brilliance and resilience continue to redefine excellence. As an oboist, he has performed with the Gateways Music Festival Orchestra and served as artist-in-residence at Interlochen Public Radio with the Sound Garden Quintet.
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Rooted in his upbringing as a Black, Guyanese-American artist, Norville’s work is informed by the rhythms of church, the discipline of conservatory training, and the conviction that creativity is infrastructure—an engine for social transformation and human connection.
A graduate of the New England Conservatory and Interlochen Arts Academy, David’s leadership extends beyond performance to the broader ecosystems of cultural equity and public imagination. His mission is to use sound and story as tools for socioeconomic empowerment, collective healing, and truth-telling.
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Norville’s voice, both literal and metaphorical, calls communities to listen more deeply—to one another, to history, and to the possibilities of a shared future.
Artist Statement
I was eight years old when I first discovered that sound could move people to joy.
My older brother played the flute, and I would sit and listen to his practice sessions for hours. I didn’t have the language for it then, but what I heard wasn’t just melody—it was imagination. The same music I recognized from Tom & Jerry suddenly had a life of its own, capable of shaping mood, memory, and even destiny. For a kid from Fort Myers, Florida, in Lee County, music was a form of liberation.
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It carried my brother to new cities, into new worlds. And soon, it carried me too.
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When I chose the oboe, I chose it for its rarity. It gave the tuning “A”—the note that unified the orchestra. I wanted to be that: the sound that brings others into harmony. Music taught me about connection, about precision, and about the sacredness of collective breath. It reminded me of church—the rhythm of sermons, the shared rise and fall of voices, the sense that sound could heal what the world had broken.
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Storytelling came later, but it had always been there. In the way my mother turned the dial to NPR’s All Things Considered on long car rides. In the way preachers turned grief into parable. In the way cartoons transformed chaos into rhythm. I learned early that stories are not just how we remember—they are how we recover.
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Over time, my work became the merging of these two forces: sound and story. Through them, I began to see creativity as infrastructure—a system for empathy, education, and collective transformation.
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My journey as a Black, Guyanese-American artist has taught me that visibility is not enough. The deeper work is to build ecosystems where art is not a luxury, but a language of liberation. As a founding member of the Black Orchestral Network, I’ve witnessed how solidarity and storytelling can shift policy, rewrite narratives, and expand possibility. As a producer at New York Public Radio, I’ve learned that even the most complex histories—colonialism, race, power—can be rendered human through a single voice in a single pair of headphones.
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When I perform, produce, or speak, I do so with one intention: to meet the emotional and intellectual needs of my audience. To remind them that knowledge is healing, and that beauty is a form of resistance. My process is impact-first, guided by the question: How do we create a more conscientious and empathetic world?
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In every episode of Black Music Seen, in every conversation, in every note I play, I try to make room for reflection—for listening that leads to action.
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Art has given me many gifts, but the greatest is this understanding: that creativity is not an escape from reality, but an instrument for reshaping it. That we do not make art to transcend our history, but to transform it.
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I believe in the power of story as a form of social architecture. I believe in the sound of collective possibility. And I believe, as Baldwin once wrote, that “the artist’s struggle for integrity must be considered as a kind of metaphor for the struggle, which is universal and daily.”
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My life’s work is to make that metaphor real—to use sound, story, and strategy to build a world where we can all be heard, seen, and free.
