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Arts Playlist: Viral sensation joins OperaDelaware's "Young Artist" Program

A Wilmington barista is joining OperaDelaware’s Young Artist Program.";

A viral video is making Wilmington resident Jason Berger a sensation.

 

Jason Berger became known as Delaware’s singing barista after a customer caught him serenading her husband while serving coffee at a Starbucks in Wilmington.

That video - posted on Facebook - has tens of thousands of views to date.

Berger- a classically trained aspiring opera singer -  is now headed to OperaDelaware’s Young Artist Program - which he was accepted to before his coffeehouse performance landed on the internet.

“Well, Im very much looking forward to this program and it’s interesting because OperaDelaware - when I was a kid - actually fostered my love of opera. So, the first opera that I was in - was in 2004, I was 12-years-old and I was in The Hobbit - I was in the chorus of Hobbit and it was then where I really got my first sense of how these beautiful trained voices sounded,” said Berger.

 

The 28-year-old Berger has been singing since he was 5 and has multiple  voice performance degrees from Boston University, the University of Michigan and Johns Hopkins University.

 

He explains what got him interested in opera.

 

“What really fostered my interest in opera was when I was a freshman in high school, I was at a boarding school in Massachusetts. And one weekend the music teacher was on and we took a weekend trip to see (Puccini’s) “La Boheme” in Northampton, Massachusetts and I was on that trip and of course I was fascinated when I was there,” said Berger.

Bergerperforms as part of “Young Artists: Make A Scene” at OperaDelaware Studios in Wilmington Friday, March 20, 2020 and Saturday, March 21, 2020. Tickets are available here.

Kelli Steele has over 30 years of experience covering news in Delaware, Baltimore, Winchester, Virginia, Phoenix, Arizona and San Diego, California.