Michael Fabiano’s first memory of classical music is dancing around his childhood living room to a record of the New World Symphony. Though at the time he was more into umpiring baseball and arguing on the debate team, he loved classical music, and from Dvorak to Beethoven, the house was full of it.

A third-generation American, Fabiano was briefly featured in the PBS documentary The Italian Americans, and when his close-knit family supported his choice in college to become an opera singer, it did so knowingly. Both parents are singers, and others in the family had attempted careers, from Great Aunt Bee the contralto, to a grandmother who was a concert pianist, to his aunt, soprano Judith Burbank.