BVA ARCHIVE: Choice for Voice 2008; 10, 11 and 12 July
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Conference Overview
by Emily Romney, Voice Faculty, Longy School of Music, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
The British Voice Association’s conference in July brought each of us together with other voice and singing teachers, performers, students, voice science researchers, and medical practitioners from across the world for a stimulating, briskly paced three day immersion into the world of voice. What made Choice for Voice a special experience for me?
The schedule was designed so that each day researchers, clinicians, and voice teachers shared their experiences and expertise through lectures, workshops, and performance. Whether one came for one day or three, one felt the inter-disciplinary BVA spirit and philosophy in action. No one could attend every event, but the cross-currents of disciplines were available to everyone in the plenary lectures and workshops.
The overall quality of presentations I attended was excellent. I appreciated hearing about new work being done in voice science and voice medicine and methods of research and evaluating results in these fields. More relevant to my work as a singing teacher were opportunities to learn about and, in a few instances to try out techniques being used by voice professionals in greater and smaller arenas. Occasional opportunities to participate actively were invaluable.
The Venue was supportive: Holding the conference in the GSMD and the Barbican, meant that we spent most of each day – not in dead and deadly hotel meeting rooms, but in acoustically friendly spaces, most that had been designed for unamplified conversation and/or voice performance. Obligatory treks through the GSMD (still alive with in-term activity) and the Barbican from lecture hall to tea break to workshop rooms were welcome scheduled opportunities to move and stretch between periods of sitting.
Providing lunch each day was an hospitable solution to the problem of finding sustenance. Lunchtime brought people together rather than scattering them and made this time of the day valuable for making professional contacts, and sharing information, gossip, opinions, ideas as well as lunch.
Artistry in Action showcasing the work in progress of advanced conservatory students kept in mind the glories that can emerge with the expert support represented during the day’s sessions.
The Concert of songs and scenes from opera and musical theatre beautifully conceived and charmingly performed by Linnhe Robertson and GSDM students on the first evening of the conference was outstanding.
It was a rare opportunity to hear the plenary speakers, representing three major strands of the BVA fabric: voice science, voice therapy, and voice medicine. I hope for the next Choices for Voice conference there will be among the plenary sessions or plenary workshops, teaching demonstrations of voice and singing involving technical work and musical or dramatic coaching. While such demonstrations were not totally absent, giving this activity center stage would acknowledge that the studio is the arena where ideally, research and therapy and pedagogy come together, the laboratory in which the long process toward the wonderful artistic performances we heard unfolds.
Many thanks to the staff of the BVA and all the conference planners and producers for an experience well worth a trip ‘across the pond’.
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