Breakout Session
Essentials of Acoustic Voice Pedagogy: An Update
Sunday, June 24 • 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.
Presenter: Kenneth Bozeman
Introduced by: Brian Horne
Location: Trinidad 1-3
This presenter has previously proposed the idea that there are acoustic registers which overlap and interact with laryngeal registers. These registers have been informally correlated with historic registration terminology of the Italian school (voce aperta, voce chiusa), with innate human voicing behaviors (yelling, whooping), and with questions of vowel modification (both passive and active). Understanding the pedagogic implications of these events and behaviors has proven productive in voice pedagogy. Additional insight into vowel perception has more recently been proposed by Ian Howell, director of vocal pedagogy at the New England Conservatory of Music, through the concept of absolute spectral tone color. This work provides both a credible basis for and specificity to the concepts of active and passive vowel modification. This presentation will distill the essential information necessary to acoustic pedagogy as well as incorporate the implications of Howell’s work in its further evolution.
About Kenneth Bozeman
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 L. Lawrence Fellowship by the Voice Foundation and NATS in 1994 for his interest in voice science and pedagogy and is the chair of the editorial board of Journal of Singing. His writings on acoustic voice pedagogy include the books, Practical Vocal Acoustics: Pedagogic Applications for Teachers and Singers and Kinesthetic Voice Pedagogy: Motivating Acoustic Efficiency. His former students have sung with Houston Grand Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Opera Colorado, Washington National Opera, Wolf Trap, Seattle Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, San Francisco Opera, New York City Opera, the Metropolitan Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera, and Santa Fe Opera.
