VocalScope

Welcome back to VocalScope and to our Second series! 

Our first guest, who is also our new sponsor, is The Accompanist, Adam Bridges. 

Adam is a London based pianist with over 20 years of playing experience and he set up The Accompanist in 2019 to provide a bespoke accompanist and backing track service from piano to full orchestration.  Having graduated from both Guildhall School of Music & Drama and London Centre of Contemporary music, his playing ability covers a wide range of genres. He has worked all around the UK and around the world performing and playing and he is a a very experienced accompanist - playing for The Royal Ballet, LAMDA, Italia Conti, Rose Bruford and many choirs.

Favourite Voice

Adam's favourite voice is Rufus Wainwright and he recommends we listen to Go or Go Ahead. 

Sponsors Discount Code

VocalScope listeners can receive a fabulous 25% discount at www.theaccompanist.co.uk by using VOCALSCOPE at check out.

Jamie Read, Co-Founder and Director of Voice Faculty at READ College, discusses with Juliette his approach to training young Musical Theatre Voices at the beginning of their full time training journey and the challenges they face in preparing for a career in the Musical Theatre industry.

Jamie is a teacher, researcher and writer specialising in Musical Theatre voice, and runs a busy private practice working with voice users from vicars to rappers and opera singers to primary school teachers. He started his career as a dancer, and worked his way into vocal coaching via musical theatre, film, TV, choreography, producing and writing, and along the way completed his Estill Master Teacher Certification and PGCert in Voice Pedagogy with Voice Workshop UK.

Links

Twitter: @VoiceTeacherUK and @READCollege

Websites: www.thevoiceteacher.co.uk and www.readcollege.org

Jamie’s favourite voice:

Callie Day sings Hear My Prayer

https://youtu.be/S2V9nZ465Co

An authority on vocal acoustics, this is a glimpse of a very special human in conversation. Humble, open, wise. 

 ‘Voice is a kind of sound characteristic of what has soul in it; nothing that is without soul utters voice… Voice then is the impact of the inbreathed air against the ‘windpipe’, and the agent that produces the impact is the soul resident in these parts of the body’. Aristotle.

Kenneth Bozeman, Professor of Music, tenor, holds performance degrees from Baylor University and the University of Arizona, and subsequently studied at the State Conservatory of Music in Munich on a Rotary fellowship.  He is chair of the voice department at Lawrence University, where he has received two awards for excellence in teaching. He was awarded the Van Lawrence Fellowship by the Voice Foundation in 1994 for his interest in voice science and pedagogy and is the chair of the editorial board of the NATS Journal of Singing. His former students have sung with Houston Grand, Boston Lyric, Opera Colorado, Washington, Wolf Trap, Seattle, Deutsche Oper Berlin, San Francisco, New York City Opera, the Metropolitan, and Santa Fe Opera.

http://www.kenbozeman.com/

Kenneth’s main faculty website with schedule, etc.

http://faculty.lawrence.edu/bozemank/

Other recordings, interviews, etc.

http://faculty.lawrence.edu/bozemank/media/recordings/

Honors Convocation – Kenneth Bozeman – Voice, the Muscle of the Soul: Finding Yourself Through Finding Your Voice – 05.22.18

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_scN9ABnZZg

Ken’s favourite singers: Jussi Bjoerling and Fritz Wunderlich.

The song he mentions is ‘Adelaide’ by Beethoven.

Wunderlich sings Adelaide:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JovuUy4TkE

Bjoerling sings Adelaide:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVlOeHOugIA

Our second 'VocalScope On Tour' episode, (listen beyond the less than perfect 'on location in a campervan' sound levels!) in which Debbie Winter introduces us to what motivated the varied PGCert, MA, qualification pathways she has developed for Voice Practitioners and Pedagogues in the UK and shares with us the inspirational areas of research her cohort are producing work in. With a PhD in the pipeline, and Debbie’s enormously varied programme of short courses too, Voice Workshop is fast becoming a one stop shop for anyone seeking the opportunity to further develop their knowledge, learning and qualifications in the area of Voice - so do check out www.voiceworkshop.co.uk.

Links:

www.voiceworkshop.co.uk

Debbie’s favourite artist’s song: - Sentimental Mood - Ella Fitzgerald

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gOij0El_IY

TV & Music Industry Vocal Coach, Jai Ramage, discusses her approach to her coaching work, and how her experiences as a musical theatre performer have contrasted with and complemented how she now works with voices in the TV and Music Industries; experiences which have all lead to her new career direction into artist management. 

http://www.jairamagevoice.com

To contact Jai:

Vocal Coaching: [email protected]

Management Enquiries: [email protected]

Instagram: @jairamagevoice

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Jai-Ramage-Voice-105335376203268/

Jai manages Flo Gallop & Coral Palms

Coral Palms debut single https://youtu.be/1ZaMHhpF_eg

Flo Gallop https://youtu.be/Z09umgbch0U

Jai's favourite voice and track:

Fairground Attraction ' A smile In a Whisper' https://youtu.be/TmZUW61iB00

Meet Walt Fritz, a physical therapist from New York who's been using manual therapy as his primary intervention strategy for over 25 years and for the past 6 years has been addressing Neck, Swallowing & Voice Disorders through a technique called Myofascial Release. 

Walt has been an educator since 1995 and travels throughout the USA and internationally, presenting his work to speech pathologists, massage therapists and vocal coaches. 

In this episode Walt shares with host, Juliette Caton, his approach to this work, describes what a Myofascial Release treatment session might feel like and how it might apply to our work as voice users, performing artists, teachers and coaches. 

Links

Website/Blog: www.waltfritz.com. For a 10% discount on the majority of Walt’s courses use VOCALSCOPE at checkout. 

Research Link: https://waltfritzseminars.com/resources-2-2/research/

Further Reading: Myofascial Release / Massage with the Vocal Athlete. https://waltfritzseminars.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/MNZ-Vocal-Athlete-April-2019-PDF.pdf

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDCX700Gnp2S-fwwkYxR_qk0W4mffJS91

'21 Questions' YouTube Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDCX700Gnp2T3qYgTbyNXaQ3ZUERYglVP

Instagram: @waltfritzpt

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/walt.fritz

Walt's Favourite Voice: Frazey Ford - Here she is singing the song he mentioned 'Indian Ocean' https://youtu.be/WkEQ1yt5CBU

Born and raised in Swansea, UK, Steve started out singing in rock bands as a teenager before he came to the public's attention in the mid '90s by way of a beard, long hair and a loincloth - playing Jesus in a West End revival of Jesus Christ Superstar.  Signing to Columbia Records soon after the messiah complex wore off, he was molded into a poppy/rocky/folky/country-ish artist - nothing like covering all the bases - and made an album, All I Am. 

"Despite the musical schizophrenia, he had a ton of fun travelling the world and writing lots of songs, and I even got to play live on legendary UK television's Top Of The Pops, and even made the charts." ​

Steve formed a country rock band, The Storys, made 3 albums and toured the globe with the great and the good, including Santana, Celine Dion, Joe Cocker and Elton John, who declared their first album 'fantastic!'.  ​ He is part of an ongoing prog/electronica project with Rob Reed of Magenta called chimpanA. 

"The first album upset Q Magazine so much that they declared it was 'drowning in a sea of pretentiousness'. They'll be over the moon that our second album is nearly finished."

More recently Steve made an Americana/Country album with Rosalie Deighton called Unfolding.  In between these adventures, Steve got to write songs for lots of artists including Meatloaf, Slash, and Cliff Richard,  worked with heroes Jon Lord of Deep Purple, Eric Woolfson of The Alan Parsons Project, and even gave a singing lesson to Robert Plant. 

Steve is currently recording a collection of old, new, borrowed and blue songs for a series of 4 EPs. 

"They've got a kind of Americana vibe, I guess because it's all I'm really listening to these days, and I think they are sounding really sweet.  Words feature very heavily in this genre, and I'm really enjoying wrestling lyrics to the mat, and trying to really get inside the songs, digging deep to soul mine my truth right now.   I'm probably the happiest musically I've ever been!"  

www.stevebalsamomusic.com

@stevebalsamo Twitter and Facebook 

@stevebalsamomusic on Instagram