Gary Catona - Biography

Biography

Of Italian descent, Catona grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where he trained with a variety of voice teachers in the hopes of becoming an opera singer. As a vocal student, Catona dreamed of becoming the next Mario Lanza, the Italian-American singing sensation of the 1950s and another native of Philadelphia.

Catona was a gifted vocalist in his teenage years and continued to pursue his dream of becoming a singer through college. A voracious reader and scholar, Catona earned his undergraduate degree, as well as a master’s in philosophy, from Pennsylvania State University.

Meanwhile, Catona grew restless in his formal voice studies and realized that his once naturally beautiful voice had become weak, nasalized, and wobbly, despite studying under 14 reputable singing coaches over the course of a decade. Catona came to the conclusion that he would have to forge his own way in the world of singing.

In 1980, Catona began to research the mechanics of voice production at the University of Texas’ acclaimed voice department. He studied voice anatomy and discovered that the vocal mechanism was composed of specific muscles in the larynx (or voice box, where the vocal cords create sound) and the pharynx (or throat, the area where vocal sounds resonate and take final form).

While studying voice anatomy, Catona discovered that vocal muscles have tremendous capacity for growth and development. Whereas other muscle groups may fatigue quickly during exercise (i.e. during a bicep curl), the vocal muscles fatigue much more slowly, and the recovery time is shorter. Through his research, Catona found a way to apply an unconventional form of exercise, isokinetic exercises, to the muscles of the voice. In short, isokinetic exercises allow maximum resistance to be applied to muscle groups throughout their full range of motion, while keeping the movement of the motion constant.

“Isokinetic exercises are a form of exercise that was originally intended to rehabilitate injuries, primarily for athletes,” Catona has stated. “Normally, this can only be done with the help of specially designed machines. My innovation was to incorporate the concept of isokinetic exercises to the muscular mechanism of the voice without the use of special equipment.”

During this time, Catona also took special note of the writings of the legendary tenor, Enrico Caruso, who spoke plainly about vocal technique, recommending that singers “sing well back in the throat” – an idea that conflicted radically with most vocal teaching philosophies at the time. In fact, all of Catona’s teachers had taught him to sing forward “in the mask” and to avoid the back of the throat altogether.

"I concluded that behind a great voice is the muscular voice," Catona recalls, "and that vocal athleticism should be the goal of vocal study.”

Based on this new understanding, Catona created his unique voice building system, which combines centuries of Italian operatic training techniques from the old Italian masters with the modern science of exercise physiology.

“My voice building system brings power, range, and richness to anyone's singing voice — men and women, boys and girls,” Catona has stated. “The results are consistently fast and dramatic."

Catona’s groundbreaking system has garnered praise from Hollywood’s most successful singers, and Catona has earned international exposure through his work, including articles in USA Today, People Magazine, and a segment on Entertainment Tonight.

Most recently, Catona was the subject of intense media attention (on CNN's Anderson Cooper, ABC's 20/20, Fox News Channel, as well as international media outlets and others, because of the untimely death of Whitney Houston, whom Catona trained for a number of years.

Beyond its success with the singing voice, Catona’s voice building system has also proven effective in bringing depth, resonance, and power into the speaking voice, and it has successfully ameliorated a wide range of difficult vocal disorders, including hoarseness, nasality, vocal cord paralysis, and other more serious vocal disorders.

Catona is based in Los Angeles, California, where he is committed to generating awareness about his voice building system.