Jason grew up in Seattle and is a proud enthusiast of rainy days. Coming from a relatively non-musical family (his brother an outdoorsman, his mother a banker, and his father a foundryman), he thought very little of it when at age 11 in his public elementary school his music teacher told him they needed “somebody to play the viola” in orchestra. Jason agreed to take a crack at it. His passion for music quickly took shape and he soon realized music’s power to transcend the mundane and break down barriers between people.
Although he rarely eats granola, and is seldom seen wearing a pair of Birkenstocks, Jason holds deeply rooted in his soul the magnificent evergreen forests of the Olympics and the crystal clear, heart-stoppingly brisk water of the Puget Sound. A hardened native of the Northwest, Jason learned how to swim at the age of 5 when his grandmother (bless her Irish heart) threw him off of a raft in the middle of the Hood Canal. He admits that the whole idea that it rains ‘all the time’ in Seattle is “nothing more than a bunch of hooey we tell the Californians so they won’t move up!” And, yes, he also remembers when Starbucks was just a cozy little neighborhood coffee shop down the street from his house.
Currently drawing inspiration from Mario Batali’s biblical tome of Italian Cooking, “Molto Italiano,” Jason enjoys setting aside time to pour his passion for food into creations from the kitchen. A recent investment in a pasta maker has led to many ventures into the delectable world of homemade pasta. Jason is also famously talented as a bartender, mixing, among other mouth-wateringly delightful classics, arguably the best Manhattan north of, well, Manhattan. (find instructions on our website – afarcry.org – for mixing a Manhattan Jason’s way, as well as the Fisher family recipe for “Bacon-Wrapped Dates,” a dazzling appetizer that risks converting even the most wholesome of vegetarians). He does not look forward to the day when his youthful metabolism gives out and he is forced to start balancing consumption with exercise.
Jason has traveled on concert tours across North America and Europe, as well as Singapore, Malaysia, Kazakhstan, and the Kyrgyz Republic. After completing his undergraduate studies with Victoria Chiang at Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, Jason spent a year in New York as a student of Katherine Murdock. Now studying with Roger Tapping in Boston, he is quite certain he couldn’t be happier. Jason plays on an English viola by Richard Duke, 1768.