Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Singing Prodigy Now Marching To His Own Tune

Joshua Haberman has sung for presidents and kings, at Carnegie Hall and Kennedy Center.

He moves with a corporate president’s confidence and speaks with a politician’s panache. Of course, he is 14.

“Joshua’s always been so unique, independent and mature for his age,” says his mother, Cynthia. She beams maternal pride like sunshine at her son, but assesses him rationally, as if he were one of her piano students.

“I had no question about letting him go.”

Cynthia and her former husband, Mark, let Joshua out of their reach when most parents tighten their grips. He was 11.

The prestigious American Boychoir School in Princeton, N.J., offered Joshua admission. The boarding-school tuition equalled that of private colleges, but it paid for priceless opportunities.

“It wasn’t something we planned for, but how could we say no?” Mark says.

Joshua grew up with music. Cynthia is a singer and pianist. Mark sings and plays organ. At 3, Joshua mimicked his parents with perfect pitch. By 5, his soprano was good enough for the church choir.

When youth choruses suspended their age rules so 8-year-old Joshua could join, Mark and Cynthia knew their son’s talent was special. They began dreaming about the choir school.

The middle school opened in Columbus, Ohio, in 1937 to nurture the angelic sound of American boys’ immature voices. The Vienna Boys Choir had melted audiences worldwide for decades, but it wasn’t welcome in the United States during the Hitler years.

The school moved to Princeton in 1950 and honed its growing reputation for musical excellence.

“I felt auditioning was a waste of time,” Joshua says, his Charlie Chaplin eyebrows pulling together in a frown. “It was a big-city choir and I was a small-town kid. I knew I’d never get in.”

The choir serenaded Joshua’s town in Iowa in April 1993. He auditioned after the show.

The choir director tested Joshua’s pitch and memory. He had Joshua sing a D-sharp as loudly as he could to check if his voice was about to change. Joshua’s voice didn’t crack.

Two months later, the school invited Joshua to visit on the same weekend his father was interviewing for a job in Coeur d’Alene. In two days, the Habermans flew from Des Moines to Spokane and back, snatched Joshua and drove to Princeton.

They found the school in an ivy-covered mansion that once belonged to the marketer of Listerine. Joshua easily decided to attend.

“How could I pass up the opportunity?” he says. “It was an experience most adults don’t get and I was in middle school.”

For three years, Joshua lived in crisp navy-blue chinos and white polo shirts. He rehearsed for nearly three hours a day. He sang with symphonies in Boston, New York and Philadelphia and with opera stars Jesse Norman and Kathleen Battle.

He performed on movie soundtracks and for South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

While he toured from San Francisco to Lubeck, Germany, through middle America and eastern Europe, his family moved to Coeur d’Alene, his parents divorced and his two younger brothers doubled in size.

By graduation last May, Joshua’s voice had fallen 2 octaves. He was ready for blue jeans and girls. He and his friends promised to rendezvous for next year’s graduation. He planned a year without singing.

But when his new school, Lake City High, held auditions for “A Christmas Carol” last month, Joshua was there. He sang his way into the role of Fred, Scrooge’s nephew, and realized he’d missed singing - but not enough to consider it for a career.

“I’ve learned from observation that music doesn’t make a lot of money,” he says, with unapologetic candor in front of his musician parents. He’s thinking about a career in computers.

“You can live a good life or an excellent life,” Joshua says. “Music would be a good life.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo