Ball in the House Has Spent Nearly 30 Years Proving A Cappella Is a Lot More Than You Think

For nearly 30 years, the Boston-based group, Ball in the House, has been bringing together R&B, soul, pop, Motown and contemporary music using nothing but their voices. On October 2, they will bring that sound to the Davis Theatre in Concord. The group’s story begins with founder Jon Ryan, who discovered early on that singing could be more than something he simply loved doing. While in college, he spent a summer performing with a group on Martha’s Vineyard. It was the first time he realized that making music could actually be a job. “That basically was someone’s idea, like, look, we sing, you know, everybody stops college and then we sit around for three months and get these short jobs and then go back. Why don’t we try and see if we could sing for that time?” Jon recalls. Getting paid to sing changed what seemed possible. After college, he returned to Boston and began performing with friends. What started casually grew over the next few years, and by the late 1990s, Ball in the House was becoming a full-time pursuit. The group counts 1997 as its unofficial founding year and recorded its first album in 1998. The band initially focused on clubs and nighttime performances before stumbling into another part of its identity: arts education. A school performance in Rochester, New York, went well, leading to more daytime performances. That accidental beginning eventually became a major part of the band’s work. Today, Ball in the House performs extensively for schools, including Students Take Part in the Arts, where they will be bringing music to the students of Cabarrus County this week before their evening performance. It is also part of what makes the group’s story particularly personal for member, Wallace Thomas. After college, Wallace spent years moving from job to job while knowing that what he really wanted to do was sing. Eventually, he began searching for opportunities through Backstage, auditioning for anything that might get him in front of an audience. Then he saw an audition for Ball in the House. The group happened to be performing in Florida, where Thomas was living at the time, so he drove two hours to meet them. He got the call a few months later. “It’s been a dream come true,” Wallace says. “I remember being a kid, like second and third grade, and all I wanted to do was sing, and now for my job, that’s what I do.” Thomas has since become not only a performer but also a teacher and advocate for the arts. That connection between performer and student has become one of the most meaningful parts of Ball in the House’s work. The group’s educational program, Totally Vocally, gives students a behind-the-scenes look at how an a cappella performance actually comes together. They learn about vocal percussion, songwriting, the history of a cappella and the technology the group uses to create its sound. But the bigger lesson, Thomas says, is that the performance they’re watching didn’t happen by accident. “It was hard work and it took belief in ourselves,” he says. For Jon, that message is just as important as the music itself. “You always hope that what you do moves people, has some kind of effect,” Jon says. “And so when you do hear that from somebody, someone takes the time to do that, it’s an amazing, incredible feeling.” It is a story that continues even within the band itself. Tyler Nordin, the group’s newest member represented in the interview, discovered a cappella through choir in high school. He went on to attend Berklee College of Music, where he studied music business and continued performing a cappella. Ball in the House was already on his radar. “It’s very rare to see a successful professional level a cappella group,” Tyler says. “And so to see Ball in the House doing its thing and literally in the same city, I was like, that is super cool and I want to do that.” He eventually began subbing with the group. After the pandemic, while working in insurance and hoping to find his way back into music, he saw an opening. “It was Ball in the House, the group I had been following for all the years,” he says. “I was like, I need to make sure that they can’t not take me.” Four years later, he’s still there. That kind of longevity, and the way musicians can discover the group, become inspired by it and eventually become part of it, is woven into Ball in the House’s nearly three decades together. It also shapes what audiences can expect when the group takes the stage. The Davis Theatre performance will feature R&B, soul, pop, Motown covers, contemporary music and original songs. But the group isn’t interested in simply standing onstage and moving from one song to the next. “We spend a lot of time in making a set that will take people on a journey,” Jon says. That means thinking about when the group sits down, when they move, when they talk with the audience and when they invite people to sing along, dance or even learn how to beatbox. Thomas describes the experience more simply. “Whatever you would expect from your favorite band when you go to the concert, that’s what you can expect from us,” he says. And perhaps that is the best way to understand Ball in the House after nearly 30 years: not as an a cappella group trying to convince people to appreciate a particular musical form, but as five singers who happen to be able to create an entire band with their voices. Their music is the starting point. The connection with the audience is the point. As Tyler puts it, some of the performances that stay with him most are the ones where the audience feels less like an audience and more like a group of friends. “It’s more conversational,” he says. “They’re more interactive with you. It’s always such a fun time.” Ball in the House performs at the Davis Theatre on October 2 at 7:30 p.m. Get your tickets for Ball in the House.