Articles

Jeanie has been working with Zachary Zwelling from Broadway’s School of Rock.  This photo was from his first lesson with Jeanie. To check out more from Zachary, click here.

      “A Spectrum of Voices“ written by Dr. Elizabeth Blades of Shenandoah University, published by Rowman & Littlefield, contains interviews with prominent voice teachers including Jeanie.

“So You Want To Sing CCM (Contemporary Commercial Music): A Guide for Performers” by compiled by Dr. Matt Hoch, of Auburn University, also published by Rowman & Littlefield. Dr. Hoch is a Somatic Voicework™ graduate. The book presents a compendium of approaches to CCM with an emphasis on vocal technique and function. Somatic Voicework™ is presented within.
Volume 11 of the Voice and Speech Review compiled by VASTA, published by Routledge. The book contains a chapter on Somatic Voicework™ entitled “Vocal Traditions: Somatic Voicework™ The LoVetri Method” written by Dr. Andrew White, Professor at the University of Nebraska. Dr. White has been a faculty on our Somatic Voicework™ training program.
Jeanie thinks the following books are inspiring and would like to announce that our SVW colleague here in NYC, Eve Zanni, has just released these publications which can be found on Amazon. The first is entitled “Jazz Superhero — Billie Holiday: Lady Day.” The biography is full of lovely illustrations and suggestions for listening from the web. The second volume is on “Lester Young — Prez.” Eve says they are for soulful kids and hip grown-ups. If you have students who would like to know more about these “jazz heroes” please check out these publications.

You are a very busy voice teacher in New York City; can you tell us about your studio in Brooklyn and your work at NYU?
     My private studio is very diverse. Of course I have the usual high school students who want better roles in their school productions, many of whom go on to college vocal performance or musical theatre programs. I have some professional working actors who are constantly auditioning and then getting booked, leaving glorious holes in my schedule! Each student presents unique challenges and I’m very grateful that Somatic Voicework™ has given me a template to meet them where they are and help them.
At NYU Tisch where I teach musical theatre majors at the New Studio on Broadway, I have weekly lessons with some of the most talented, passionate, creative and motivated students I’ve ever known. They still need solid vocal technique and development, though, so that’s where I come in. They have repertoire classes covering EVERY kind of music – not just MT – so we are on the cutting edge of training for the current profession. They are expected to sing jazz, blues, different eras of pop and rock and folk as well as legit MT and belt. Not to mention dance their tushes off and acting training.

As a seasoned performer, having worked professionally in Musical Theatre in New York City, on national tours, internationally, etc., what do you think the important keys to success emerging artists must consider before embarking on a career?
If you listen to musical theatre singers of the past, they had very unique and recognizable voices. They may not have had technically perfect instruments or in some cases any vocal training, but they could inhabit a song, some quite beautifully. I worry about the graduates of all the hundreds of musical theatre programs across the country now. They may sing well, but in this highly competitive market, what is individual and special about them that will make them stand out? They are all beginning to sound the same – are we training the individuality right out of them?
The other thing MT performers need to know is: acting first. Unless you are an astonishing dancer or a good dancer who’s content to stay in the ensemble, what performers on Broadway have always been and continue to be are actors first and foremost. If you’re being sent in for an agent submission or going to an Equity call, they just ASSUME you can sing (and you’d better be able to!), but they are looking beyond that for strong acting and personalization of the work you bring in. [Read more…] about Spotlight on Michelle Rosen

We are rolling closer to our LoVetri Institute for Somatic Voicework™ at Baldwin Wallace University in the Community Music School in Berea, Ohio, this July. Registrations continue coming in each day. Don’t wait until last minute to reserve a spot as last year we were full! Our large roster of professionals who are at the very top of their professions are being brought in from around the globe to the Institute. We would also like to issue a friendly reminder that reviewers receive a 50% discount on any level they wish to revisit. 
(Photographed Above: Jeanie LoVetri & Broadway Musical Director Thomas Murray)
(Photographed Below: Dr. Claudio Milstein with patient)

Where else could you see a Broadway music director, a nationally recognized Gospel, R&B and jazz expert master class, a three-hour medical lecture and a vocal health presentation aimed at singers and teachers, and find colleagues who are open-hearted, fun, interesting and dynamic? Come join a room full of “voice geeks”. What could be better? Participants loved the first Institute in our new home at Baldwin Wallace in the Community Music School. We enthusiastically encourage you to come be part of the scientific, performance, medical, musical, and personal party that is the LoVetri Institute for Somatic Voicework™.  And, for the first time, just for graduates of Level III, world-renowned voice expert, Dr. Claudio Milstein, of the internationally recognized Cleveland Clinic, will be offering a two-day intensive on vocal health on July 27th & 28th. To register for The LoVetri Institute for Somatic Voicework™ and/or Dr. Milstein’s Workshop, please click here.

Announcement has just been made of the new LoVetri Institute for Somatic Voicework™ in Toowoomba, Australia, in the Artsworx program of University of Southern Queensland, in January 2019. All three levels will be offered and reviewers are welcome.  For more information please contact Dr. Melissa Forbes.
Jeanie is also expecting to return to Brazil in January 2020, as her work there with 80 people was very successful and the brilliant Brazilians have invited her to return. More details will follow as they are established in coming months.
     The Jeanie LoVetri Show: Our Vocal Universe is now available on YouTube. Please click here to check out The Jeanie LoVetri Show: Our Vocal Universe. More shows will be forthcoming in the next few months. Take a look for the three episodes featuring interviews with a jazz vocalist, a choral conductor/singing teacher, and a teacher of theatrical speech for actors. All very interesting people with great insights to share.

My name is Moran Cohen Talmor, and I am from Israel. I am a vocalist and songwriter, and I have been teaching voice for 11 years. In my 39 years of life, I have practiced martial arts, hydrotherapy, Rei-ki, Qui-gong, Alexander technique, and swimming. And so, it is only natural that I have always been interested in voice production approaches that are based on bodywork. My life was changed five years ago when I had the privilege to meet Ms. Jeanie LoVetri. I took her SVW™ courses levels 1, 2 and 3, and since then have become 100% a SVW™ teacher. In the following years, Jeanie has been a mentor, and a professional as much as a spiritual inspiration to me. I try my best to come to America every year to deepen my understanding of her work.
After practicing Jeanie`s method for 5 years, and daily witnessing the powerful impact it has on people`s voices, I felt a deep calling to step up to the next level, and start creating voice pedagogy in Israel that is based on the LoVetri Method.

Jeanie was of course incredibly supportive. She spent so much time and effort guiding me both before and throughout the process, asking me all the right questions, and giving profoundly detailed answers to mine. I wasn`t alone in this, and so, my first 3 months journey as the leader of a “teacher`s course” has begun. [Read more…] about First Teacher’s Course in Israel based on SVW principles

A Transgender Voice Teacher’s Recommendations for Working with Transgender Singers

By Eli Conley

I’ve talked to many voice teachers in recent years who are seeking guidance about how to work with transgender and non-binary singers.

This is a topic that is near and dear to my heart. I’m a private voice teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area, and a transgender man who has worked with many transgender and non-binary voice students. I also lead community singing classes for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual people and allies. I’ve sung in many choirs, and taken voice lessons from some wonderful teachers. I’m also a performing singer-songwriter who records and tours regularly.

All of these experiences have led me to believe that voice teachers, choir directors, and other voice professionals can do a lot to shift the culture of singing spaces, transforming them from spaces that are often unintentionally hostile to transgender and non-binary singers into spaces of support and gender liberation.

I was inspired to write this article after a discussion about working with transgender singers came up on an online listserv for teachers trained in Somatic Voicework™, the body-based voice training program created by Jeanie LoVetri.

 One of the things I love about Somatic Voicework™ The LoVetri Method is that Jeanie LoVetri teaches that to achieve a healthy, versatile voice, singers of all genders and genres of music must strengthen both their head and chest registers, and learn to blend them together into a coordinated mix in the middle voice. Watching her teach a cisgender baritone to access his head register for the first time in order to make his whole voice stronger made so much sense to me as a transgender singer. I had to burst open the gender boxes that people placed on me as a young person, and I know the emotional and vocal freedom that has come from that. Why should singers let gender expectations hold them back from using the full range of their voices? [Read more…] about Creating Gender Liberatory Singing Spaces

Photographed: Jeanie LoVetri with Candice Donehoo Pullom
We are excited to be announcing our 2018 LoVetri Institute for Somatic Voicework™ in residence at Baldwin Wallace University in Berea, Ohio, from July 21 through 29. Registration is now live! All three levels will be presented and there will be the first-ever Vocal Health Intensive for graduates of Level III (prior to 2018) presented by a leading voice research scientist and expert, Dr. Claudio Milstein, Director of the Voice Centre at the Head and Neck Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio. This affiliation with one of the great medical centers in the USA is a honor and delight for the LoVetri Institute. Dr. Milstein will be creating an annual program specifically for Somatic Voicework™ teachers to give them a greater awareness to appropriately address vocal health issues. We also have other world-class experts in vocal health and vocal performance.
Photographed Below: Dr. Claudio Milstein with a patient, photo courtesy of Gretchen Cuda for NPR
Registration for Dr. Milstein’s course will be available in the coming weeks and will be announced in a future newsletter.

The following is our 2018 Guest Faculty. Dr. H. Steven Sims, laryngologist at the University of Illinois Chicago Institute for Voice Care, will be our medical lecturer in Level III. Dr. Sims has treated many professional voice users and is very “singing voice” knowledgeable. His three-hour lecture will give practical information that all teachers of singing and singers need to help stay healthy. He will be joined in Ohio by his colleague at the Voice Care Institute, Jan Potter Reed, a Speech Language Pathologist specializing in voice. She will be lecturing on vocal health in Level I. Also in Level III, we will be joined by Tom Murray , who is returning by popular demand, to do another master class series on Broadway auditions with our participants. Tom is currently Music Director for Broadway’s Anastasia and brings years of experience about
Broadway singing and performing that he generously shares with our participants. Dr. Trineice Robinson-Martin (http://www.drtrineice.com/index.html) , author, singer and Gospel vocal pedagogy expert, will do a clinic and master class with participants on jazz, blues, and gospel. Our bodywork experts are Suzan Postel (joining us in Level I) and Peter Shor (joining us in Level II). Suzan is a Pilates Instructor, singer, dancer, and broadway veteran. Peter is a massage therapist, artist and musician with years of study in many bodywork disciplines. Both have been associated with Somatic Voicework™ for many years.

Photographed Above: Dr. H. Steven Sims
Photographed Below: Somatic Voicework™ Faculty, Michelle Rosen, Jeff Costello, Besty Fiedler
Assisting Jeanie through all three levels is Michelle Rosen, Senior Faculty, who teaches at NYU Tisch, at The Brooklyn Youth Chorus, and privately. She is also former faculty at Rider University in their Music Theater degree program. The Associate Faculty is Betsy Fiedler from Massachusetts, who teaches at college, in local schools, at is an active church musician, soloist and choral conductor. She also has a private practice. Jeff Costello is our Audio Engineer and will presenting as well as be Assistant Faculty. Benjamin Czarnota will again be returning as Faculty Liaison. They will be joined by for breakouts by Assistant Faculty Leischen Moore from Tacoma, Davin Youngs from Chicago, Amanda Chmela from New York, and other Somatic Voicework™ teachers to be announced.
This gathering of experts, who will be teaching people from all over the USA and the world, will be offering a wealth of information that cannot be obtained anywhere else at one time (just 9 days!) and in one place and for this very reasonable fee. Other courses, with fewer experts and less content, are more expensive. Our reasonable fee makes it accessible for the broadest audience to be able to attend. The number of spaces available, however, due to last year’s overflow crowd, will be limited and we urge anyone who is planning to come to register well in advance to be sure to hold a place. There will be a waiting list this year. Registration for this summer’s LoVetri Institute for Somatic Voicework™ is now live, please click here to register!
[Read more…] about Off to Brazil, U.S. Teaching Weekend Tour & LoVetri Institute Registration is LIVE!

Photographed Above: Somatic Voicework™ Teachers, Andrea Luyites & Katharine Randolph
Hi Katharine, thanks so much for taking the time to meet with us today. You are a very busy voice teacher in Houston; can you tell us about your studio?

My studio is predominantly made up of high school students who perform in musical theatre.  I have a handful of students who are more into pop and rock, and recently I have had an influx of young ones! (9 and 10 year olds). Most of my students dance, act, and play instruments so we have found ways to encourage and highlight all that they do.

As a seasoned performer, having trained and worked in both Musical Theatre and Classical settings, what do you think the important differences are between successes in the Operatic world vs. the Musical Theatre world, vocally speaking? [Read more…] about Spotlight On Somatic Voicework™ Teacher Katharine Randolph

Photo: Martin C. Hurt
You are a very busy voice teacher in New York City; can you tell us about your studio and your work with AMDA, Kean University, & Fairleigh Dickinson University?

Thank you for the interest in my work! Yes, I’m very busy these days teaching between 30-40 voice lesson hours per week, and enjoy every minute of my time with each client!
(Photographed below: Martin C. Hurt in Promises, Promises)
I have been a private voice instructor here in New York City and in New Jersey since 2006. My busy NYC studio consists primarily of musical theatre professionals, as well as a number of singer/songwriter and jazz artist. My New Jersey clients include adult semi-professional and avocational singers, older singers who have found me in their search for help in regaining lost or challenged vocal ability, and adolescent singers of all levels.
I teach Individual Voice at The American Musical and Dramatic Academy (NYC), a theatre arts conservatory program offering both a two year certificate degree and a BFA. My students there are enrolled in either the integrated (musical theatre), studio (acting), or dance programs.
I teach private voice for the theatre programs at Kean University (Union, NJ) and Fairleigh Dickinson University (Madison, NJ). These programs offer both BFA and BA theatre degrees and include up to two musicals and numerous plays per academic year as part of their offerings. [Read more…] about Spotlight On Somatic Voicework™ Teacher Martin C. Hurt