December 8, 1906-May 12, 1974
Anthony Ferraz was a 25-year-old musician with experience well beyond his years in 1930 when he landed in Bermuda as a pianist with a cash-strapped vaudeville show.
He remained in Bermuda after the show folded, and the Island became the beneficiary of his musical talents.
He is best remembered as the long-time organist and choir director of St. Theresa’s Roman Catholic Cathedral. He was also an arranger and composer with a vast repertoire.
He played everything from classical music to calypsos, wrote original music for ballets, masses and calypsonians, and was a member of the Bermuda Philharmonic Orchestra.
Known for his generosity, he donated hours of his time to the Roman Catholic Church and its school, Mount St. Agnes Academy, in addition to charities and cultural organisations. He played the organ at St. Theresa’s for more than 40 years, free of charge, and also waived his fees for weddings and funerals for people who could not afford them.
One of nine children, Ferraz was born in British Guiana (now Guyana), where his father, a Spanish immigrant, owned a cycle shop. His mother was a concert pianist who introduced him to the piano when he was four and a half.
She was a demanding teacher, insisting that he practise every day before going to school. He found the lessons a chore, but he stuck to the regimen, which eventually increased to three hours a day. They stood him in good stead.
His mother taught him composition and orchestration, in addition to the piano, and he studied the organ and violin with other teachers. By age 14, he was leading a band in a silent movie theatre.
After leaving school (probably at age 13), he took a three-year engineering apprenticeship and then joined his father’s cycle business, where he used his engineering skills to make pedal cycles. He eventually left the business to become a full-time musician.
He played in hotels, and for social and theatrical events, was an accompanist for visiting artists and travelled to Trinidad each year to take part in its famous Carnival.
When he was 18, he moved to Trinidad where, among other things, he became a judge for Carnival bands and wrote commercials for shopkeepers in the run-up to Carnival.
Soon he was touring the Caribbean as a pianist for a U.S. vaudeville show, but he was never paid. When the show folded in Bermuda, Ferraz was offered $80 cash, which he could either pocket, or use to pay his passage back home.
He took the cash and embarked on a new life in Bermuda. His first job was in a cycle shop. He was involved with a number of enterprises during his working life. He even returned to the Caribbean for two years and ran a liquor store in Barbados, but pedal cycle sales and repairs were his main line of business.
His last venture was the coffee bar Moulin Rouge on Queen Street, Hamilton, where he was the house musician. He also worked as an accountant for the Bermuda Electric Light Company.
His life in music in Bermuda began with his appointment as organist at St. Edward’s in Hamilton, the Island’s first Catholic Church. He continued in the post after St. Theresa’s was built.
Ferraz had by then met his future wife Phyllis Belvin and on Christmas Day 1931, the couple became the first to be married at St. Theresa’s, one month before it was consecrated.
Ferraz’s musical abilities were invaluable to the church. He advised church leaders on a replacement organ for the one St. Theresa’s had inherited from St. Edward’s, and which had to be pumped by hand. He also established and directed a choir at St. Theresa’s.
Ferraz played at every Catholic church in Bermuda during the course of his career, for countless weddings and funerals, and Mount St. Agnes’ concerts and graduations. He wrote and arranged music for the school band. He played in the Bermuda Philharmonic Orchestra, wrote music for the ballets staged by the School of Russian Ballet and also for calypsonians and other Bermuda entertainers.
He continued with formal music studies, eventually earning a degree in music and also passed rigorous exams to qualify as an examiner for the Royal School of Music.
He and his wife had four children, including Sheila Ferraz (Sister Joseph Anthony), a member of the religious congregation Sisters of Charity. She taught music at Mount St. Agnes and father and daughter often worked together on school productions.
Ferraz also wrote Latin and English masses—one was dedicated to St. Philomena and written in memory of his mother. Another was dedicated to St. Ann, his favourite saint. His English-language Mass of the Risen Saviour was often sung at Mount St. Agnes and St. Theresa’s.
His contributions, which included staging shows to raise funds for the Red Cross during the Second World War, did not go unrecognized. In 1964, he became Bermuda’s first Papal knight, with his appointment as a Knight of St. Sylvester, an honour conferred by the Catholic Church.
Ferraz last played in public on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, 1974, at St. Patrick’s Church in Smith’s.
He died two months later on May 12, 1974 of pancreatic cancer at age 67. The Bishop and priests from all Catholic churches in Bermuda presided over his funeral mass at St. Theresa’s on May 14. He was buried at Calvary Cemetery in Devonshire.
His wife Phyllis outlived him by 30 years. She died in 2001. On October 6, 2002, at a special service at St. Theresa’s, a new organ was dedicated to the memory of Anthony and Phyllis Ferraz. In 2003, Anthony Ferraz was posthumously awarded the Bermuda Arts Council’s Founders Award.
