ON THE TOWN WITH CHIP DEFFAA… MEETING CABARET’S YOUNGEST ARTIST, ETHAN MATHIAS

For my column this week, I’d like to introduce you to cabaret’s youngest star, Ethan Mathias.

Even at age 12, Ethan Mathias was singing impressively.  You can see the proof in old video footage.  He was 12 when he moved from Ada, Michigan, where he grew up, to NYC, where he made his stage debut in an Off-Broadway show called “The Last Boy.”

By age 15, the cabaret world  began really taking notice of him, because he was the youngest performer in New York starring in cabaret shows of his own, winning fans via multiple appearances at Don’t Tell Mama (directed by Lennie Watts, music-directed by Tracy Stark). He was singing modern musical-theater songs he liked.  And garnering great reviews.

Recently, at age 16, Ethan won both the Broadwayworld Award and the MAC Award for best cabaret debut show.   In addition, he entered the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) vocal competition–and received first-place honors in his age group in BOTH the musical-theater and classical music categories.  I can’t recall anyone ever winning so many significant  awards and honors at the tender age of 16.  To date, he’s appeared in two Off-Broadway productions, two television programs,  and  one movie.

Now I might be considered a bit biased concerning Ethan, because he and I have been friends for quite a while.  (I’ll leave it to others who don’t know him  to review his cabaret shows; I’m happy  to simply tell you about him here.)  To me, his impressive talent was unmistakable right from the start. And he’s equally adept at singing musical-theater numbers and songs from the classical repertoire, which is extremely  rare for a teenaged boy.

He has an excellent vocal range (chest voice F#3 to C5; mix to G5; head voice to C6), and he sounds good in both the upper and lower parts of that range. He’s been studying with the same primary voice teacher since he was 10—Chris York.  And he’s taken master classes with some of the very best in the business.      I’ve enjoyed witnessing his growth as an artist in recent years, and watching more and more people discover him.

 And he’s bright–which I also like!  He completed high school unusually early—at the age of 16.  (He skipped eighth grade altogether and took a heavier-than-normal course load  in 12th grade so that he could complete his senior year early.)  In the fall, he will start as a student at the prestigious Mannes School of Music in NYC.

I might add, Ethan has  got some major talents singing his praises these days.  His champions include Broadway composer Adam Guettel, who’s helped mentor him, and such noted cabaret/concert stars as Jeff Harnar and Michael Feinstein (who calls Ethan “a quite remarkable young man” and is seen singing with Ethan in one photo that I’ll share).

Ethan Mathias has just turned 17.  And he seems, at present,  to be almost everywhere in the cabaret world.  He’s in-demand as a guest in other’s singers’ shows and concerts. One week, he might be part of a gala all-star concert honoring Sidney Myer, the next week, making a guest appearance (along with the likes of Karen Mason and Aaron Lee Battle) on Susie Mosher’s variety show, “The Lineup.”

 In just a few weeks, Ethan will launch a new solo cabaret show of his own, “Wait Till You See What’s Next,”  It’s directed by Eric Michael Gillett, who says “I think Ethan has something pretty special up his sleeve,” and music-directed by Michael Lavine.  He’ll be introducing his new cabaret show on  7 pm July 9th at the Green Room 42 (570 Tenth Avenueat 42nd Street, NYC).

And this week, Ethan Mathias is making his recording debut, singing several very rare Cohan songs on a new album that I’ve produced, “George M. Cohan’s Broadway” (available as either a physical CD or in digital form from  Amazon, Ebay, Apple iTunes, Spotify etc.).  On that new album,  coming out this week,  young Ethan is  in the company of such well-known, highly accomplished  Broadway/cabaret pros as Lee Roy Reams, Jon Peterson, Seth Sikes, Nicolas King, and Josephine Sanges. (I wouldn’t invite Ethan to record a never-before-recorded song by a master like Cohan, or appear in the company of so many distinguished  theater and cabaret artists if I didn’t have great belief in him.)

Ethan is quite dedicated to his craft; he was even busy recording for me on his birthday—which some kids would have insisted on treating as a “day off.”   (He did find  time to properly celebrate his birthday after the session ended, with friends at Sardi’s.)

And other respected artists are inviting Ethan to sing duets with them for their own upcoming albums.  Ethan has  recently recorded duets, for example,  with both Michael Townsend Wright and Keith Anderson for their own next  CDs, scheduled  to be released in five or six months.  And he loves singing all kinds of songs.  With Michael Townsend Wright he’s recorded vaudeville-era favorites “Always Leave ‘Em Laughing” and  “Goodbye My Lady Love”; with Keith Anderson, he’s recorded timeless favorites like “Give My Regards to Broadway” and “Everything Old is New Again.”

 Michael Townsend Wright—who’ll also be heard singing duets on his next album with such notables as Giuseppe Bausilio and Seth Sikes—offered these comments regarding Ethan Mathias: “It was a joy to work with a young man who’s already a seasoned pro–even at such a youthful age.   I also liked that we could chat without my having to do any editing because of our generational difference.  And Ethan’s a very nice person.”

Ethan’s also recorded recently for the World Voice Ensemble and for songwriters Steven Silverstein and for Andrew Zachary Cohen–recording a new song that, Ethan says,  they wrote specifically for him. He’s beginning to get out-of-town bookings, as well—most recently at the annual Glenn Miller Festival, in the late big-band leader’s old home town of  Clarinda, Iowa.

The signs seem pretty clear.  Ethan Mathias is on his way.

* * *

I’ve gotten to know Ethan a good bit from working with him at recording sessions.   But I wanted to know him better, and invited him to sit down with me for a formal interview.  He took time out from rehearsing for his upcoming July cabaret show, to meet with me at the apartment of his music director, Michael Lavine.  I was interested in learning how Ethan  got into singing in general—and, more specifically,  how he got into singing theater songs and traditional pop, and classical concert pieces, as opposed to more raucus contemporary rock music.

He told me: “I’ve been singing for as long as I could talk.  Even when I was a very little kid, I’d watch film musicals like ‘The Wizard of Oz’ and ‘Bye Bye Birdie,’ and I’d sing the songs from those films.” He noted that he grew up in a family where doing musical-theater was almost the norm; it was just something that kids in his family did.  “I was the youngest of 11 kids; I had seven older sisters, three older brothers.  A lot of my siblings did local theater stuff.  When we were driving in the car, there was always music playing.  We’d listen to Broadway stuff, which I loved, on Sirius XM.”

By age five, he was appearing on stage in musicals.  He remembers, for example, that at age five he was a kid in the ensemble of a local production of “Evita.”  The family lived in the small town of Ada, Michigan, just outside of Grand Rapids.  By age nine, Ethan was playing the role of “John” in the musical, “Fun Home,” at the Circle Theatre in Grand Rapids.

But if his older siblings “liked” doing musical theater, he found that he had a real passion for it that none of them had.  “By the time I was nine or ten, I knew that performing was something I wanted to do for a living.  None of my siblings felt that way.”

His mom, Lisa Mathias, notes: “By age nine, he was telling me he wanted an agent!”  I doubt many nine-year-olds in Ada, Michigan, even knew what an agent was, much less said they wanted to have one.  But Ethan’s mom eventually found him professional representation (Stewart Talent).  And before long, he was performing in a show in New York City.  He and his mom moved from Ada, Michigan to NYC so he could do the show—and decided to stay because New York was the best place to get professional training.

As a young boy in Ada, Ethan  had attended public school, sitting in classrooms along with all of his friends.  When Covid forced schools to shut down and offer online instruction instead, Ethan  found that he liked studying online.

He left the Ada public school system and enrolled in an online education program where he could study at his own pace, when it fit his own schedule. And he thrived, doing online classes at his own pace.   He completed  both Algebra One and Algebra Two, for example,  in the same year.

And doing his academic work online  gave him the freedom to pursue theatrical opportunities as they came along, whether it meant doing a show in New York (like “The Last Boy”) or in Utah (“The School of Rock”), or any  place else.

And singing songs in musicals—and eventually in cabaret—really suited his personality.  “I liked that I could reach people,” he told me.  “And I felt calm on stage.  In control.  Everything feels more linear to me, ” he noted, while singing the musical-theater songs he loved.  “I love being able to tell stories through some songs, or just sing my head off on other sorts of songs.  They’re both fantastic art forms.”

He sought out the  best teachers he could find, studying both singing and dancing.  For two years he studied ballet with the Joffrey Ballet; now he studies  with Janine Molinari (“Dance Molinari”).  For two years, he studied music and voice (working with such teachers as Giuseppe Spoletini and James Noble) with the Manhattan School of Music pre-college program.

He’s studied the art of cabaret in prominent forums, learning from masters in the field like Jeff Harnar, Natalie Douglas, and Michael Feinstein at the Eugene O’Neill Center’s Cabaret & Performance Conference in Waterford, Connecticut, at “MAC to School” seminars in NYC, and—in the last two summers–at the noted Songbook Academy, founded by Feinstein (which is dedicated to fostering interest in the Great American Songbook) in Carmel, Indiana.

Pianist/music director Michael Lavine—who’s worked, at one time or another, with seemingly every great in business—has nothing but praise for Ethan: “He reads music like a dream.  He’s almost always right in the center of the pitch.  He’s an excellent musician.  If I give him notes, he picks them up quickly.”

What will Ethan’s new cabaret show be like?  ‘You’ll have to come to find out,” Ethan suggests.  And I leave him and Michael to work on the new show.