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The journey from conservatory school in Baltimore to internationally-acclaimed voice teacher began not in the practice room, but on the baseball diamond.
“The thing I did was play a lot of Little League Baseball,” remembers Jason Ferrante, whose father was a respected coach in the community.
The lessons learned from “the thinker’s game” are lessons that Ferrante now transfers to his students all over the world. This includes some of the biggest names in classical singing performing on stages at (among others) New York City’s Metropolitan Opera, the Royal Ballet and Opera and at English National Opera to the next generation of Canadian operatic talent that has descended on the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity this month.
“The training there, which involved so much specific athletic routine and training, yet not scientific but specific... that’s kind of the same blueprint,” explains Ferrante. “But, instead of swinging a bat, we’re trying to scream high notes.”
A native of Tempe, Arizona, Ferrante travels the world throughout the course of the year providing feedback to students. Since his schedule is so demanding, he rarely has more than a few sessions with students, making him an outlier from the traditional model of weekly lessons, often over a period of years. Rather than rely on relationships and precedent, Ferrante’s toolkit – much like that of a baseball scout – relies on statistics.
“When you bring an aria in to sing with me, the chances are pretty high I’ve worked on it with fifty other people,” says Ferrante. “So then, I can start pulling on these statistics, and that helps a great deal.”
“I’m sort of like that uncle that goes to his niece and nephew’s house, gives them candy at 10 p.m., and then leaves,” he laughs.
An accomplished performer in his own right, Ferrante has performed alongside some of the greatest orchestras in the world, from Boston to Guangzhou. It’s an experience that he admits still horrifies him, even after performing in nearly a hundred operas over a two-decade-plus career. This relationship with performance has led Ferrante to what he describes as a 25%-75% ratio of performing to teaching, where he learns more about both his and his student’s instruments.
“There are certain things that I’m able to scrutinize and feel and empathize with in the studio as a teacher that I just may be too nervous to notice in myself,” Ferrante elaborates. “I’m now entering that period in my life where I can say, ‘I’ve done that’, and my passion is the same as it was twenty years ago, but that packet of statistical knowledge has given me the most confidence.”
Despite his own successes on the stage, Ferrante’s biggest thrill comes in seeing his students thrive. “It’s unrivalled,” he says of the feeling of watching his students succeed. “It feels nothing at all like my own triumphs or failures on stage as a performer. If you are wired in your DNA with that sort of empathy... It’s unbelievable.”