Children's Voices
Jeannette LoVetri has been teaching children to sing more than three decades. She has worked with professional children on Broadway in shows such as "Les Miserables" and "Annie" and with non-professional children who sing for fun in local school choruses or as soloists in church or music theater productions.
Working with children requires special expertise, as children's voice can be trained, although not as "little adults". The same Somatic Voicework™ principles apply, but they are modified to meet to the needs of children.
Children who like to sing should be encouraged to do so. Children who are copying what they hear on shows like "American Idol" need to be guided to make sure they aren't just yelling. Children who hear only pop music on the radio would benefit from being guided to hear many different kinds of music.
Advice to parents: Many singing teachers do not teach children or believe that children should be left to sing on their own "natural instinct". That is an old fashioned point of view. However, most vocal training for singing is based upon opera, and children should not be encouraged to sound like adult opera singers, either. It is correct to say, then, that vocal technique teachers who know how to work with children in a variety of musical styles are few and far between.
Choral Directors may be helpful, but again, caution here is worthwhile. Choral Directors are often musicians before they are singers and some have little or no vocal background. Choruses don't generally worry about the development of an individual child's voice, but are often concerned with the "choral sound" or the sound of a "section" or "voice part". More information on children's choruses follows:
Children's Chorus
Jeannette LoVetri has been the Voice Specialist of the Grammy award-winning Brooklyn Youth Chorus since its inception in 1992 and has developed a unique program of vocal training for children's chorus with her student, BYC Founder and Artistic Director, Dianne Berkun, called Cross-Choral Training®. BYC has performed with The New York Philharmonic, The Oratorio Society at Carnegie Hall, The Brooklyn Philharmonic, and on national television; internationally at venues such as Canterbury Cathedral in London and in many other acclaimed performances; as well as with Elton John, Paul Simon, Judy Collins, Brandy, and on Saturday Night Live. Jeannette recently presented a Cross-Choral Training® Intensive at New York University, Steinhardt School of Education, with Dianne Berkun, of the Brooklyn Youth Chorus on Saturday, February 26, 2005.
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