Who is Ariana Grande’s vocal coach? Exploring Eric Vetro’s vocal coaching journey

Ariana Grande started singing professionally when she was as young as 15, with the expert coaching of Eric Vetro by her side from the very beginning. Vetro, who is now 67 years old, has been Grande's vocal coach throughout her career.

And Ariana Grande isn't the only singer or celebrity Vetro has coached. The other stars that train with him are Katy Perry, Sabrina Carpenter, John Legend, Rita Ora, Camila Cabello, Rosalia, Juanes, and Shawn Mendes.

Eric has also worked as a trainer for actors as well for the musicals Chicago, La La Land, Beauty and the Beast, Mary Poppins Returns, Judy, Cinderella, In The Heights, and others.

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Ariana Grande's vocal coach started singing and coaching at the age of 6

In a 2023 interview with People magazine, Eric Vetro looked back at the humble beginnings of his vocal training, which dates all the way back to when he was a six-year-old boy. Vetro recalled how he and his cousin were singing Christmas songs, saying:

"She was singing 'Jingle Bells' wrong, and I kept drilling her, 'No, it's like this.' I kept making her sing it over and over and over, and she finally got it right. [the same cousin] went on to do a few beauty pageants, and I coached her on the songs."

Eric's talents were also recognized at his school in New York Upstate, where he played piano for the musicals and trained fellow students who went for auditions. His teachers, appreciating his skills, were happy to excuse him from classes when he needed to focus on assisting other student actors and singers.

Bringing up an incident in his gym class that reflected his teachers' belief in him, Vetro said:

"I went to the gym teacher and said, 'My hands are really important right now,' so he excused me from climbing the ropes and doing certain sports where I could hurt my hands because I took it so seriously. If he thought I was just making it up to get out of gym class, he wouldn't have done it, but he believed me."

However, Eric wasn't extended the same kind of belief at home. The 67-year-old recalled in the interview how his constant singing around the house annoyed his father, who didn't understand how such a passion would ever make way for a stable career. Looking back at it, Ariana Grande's vocal coach said:

"My father was like, 'What are you going to do, teach singing? What kind of job is that?' He couldn't see me going out to work with people in Hollywood."

Elsewhere in the interview, Ariana Grande's coach confessed that the Grammy-winning songwriter Desmond Child was his first celebrity friend. The coach had played piano for several of Child's recitals.

Through Child, Eric met Deborah Aquila - the casting agent with whom he would later work on La La Land. He moved to LA shortly after finishing college, where he met Craig Zaden and Neil Marin - the film producers who hired him for the 1999 Annie's remake.

With that as his first big break, Vetro soon found himself surrounded by work referrals, saying:

"Little by little, then they would tell their friends. Every time you'd work with someone that was a little bit more successful, they would tell someone else, and it just kind of went from there. It feels magical, but trust me, I did work really hard to do a good job."

It was around the same time that Vetro started coaching Ariana Grande.

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Eric Vetro considers himself as an uncle to Ariana Grande

In the interview, when asked about his relationship with the celebrities he has coached over the years, Eric admitted that he didn't feel like a parent figure in their lives but like an uncle instead, further saying:

"Watching them get hit records or go on to do other things, like when Camila did Cinderella or Ariana filming Wicked, it's so exciting to me, feeling like I'm a part of helping them make those things happen."

In 2021, Ariana Grande was invited as a guest on her vocal coach's podcast, Backstage Pass with Eric Vetro, on which Vetro revealed that he had been working with Grande for more than 14 years. Vetro also mentioned in his People interview that he had connected with Grande ahead of her debut 13: The Musical, which basically means he has been training her since the beginning of her career.

It was also revealed on the podcast that when the Thank U, Next singer performed The Way on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2013, Vetro was right backstage, on hand with his student to see if she needed any help.