Voice Study Centre Online Symposium 2025
Wednesday 26th November 2025, 5:00 PM - 9:00 PM (London Time)
Welcome to The Athletic Artist: Physical and Vocal Demands in Musical Theatre, a symposium dedicated to bridging the gap between artistic training and athletic conditioning for performers.
Musical Theatre performers are athletes balancing the demands of singing, dancing and acting. The purpose of this symposium is to ask important questions, share research and disseminate good practice. It is an opportunity for researchers and industry experts to come together as a hive mind to stimulate further research and work collaboratively as a network.
Schedule
5:00 pm (GMT) Welcome and Introduction, followed by:
| Time | Session Title |
|---|---|
5:05 pm |
Keynote Speaker: Dr. Amanda Flynn |
5:55 pm |
Simultaneous Singing and Dancing: A Cross-Disciplinary Review with Debbie Winter |
6:05 pm |
The Additional Demands on the Musical Theatre Performer and Potential Links to Increased Laryngeal Tension: A Rapid Review with Dr Claire Thomas |
6:20 pm |
Interactive Workshop: Excavating Emotionally Engaged Performance. What is the physical and mental toll for Musical Theatre singers? With Louisa Morgan |
6:50 pm |
The Vocal Athlete: A Literature Review of Physiological Resilience to Performance Adrenaline in Professional Singers with Dan Cassin |
7:00 pm |
Cross Training and Conditioning for Musical Theatre Performers: A Theoretical Framework with Jennifer Myers |
7:10 pm |
Psychological and emotional well-being of undergraduate theatre artists in Nigerian HEIs with Abimbola Adetola Stephen-Adesina |
7:20 pm |
Singing as a triple threat: A qualitative study of professional, semi-professional, and vocational trainee performers’ experiences of singing while simultaneously performing the three musical theatre disciplines of singing, acting, and dancing with Christine Descher. |
7:30 pm |
Integrating acting through song and extreme singing techniques for sustainable performance with Kaya Herstead–Carney |
|
|
Finding Wonderland: A case study of the teacher as coach in supporting undergraduate musical theatre students in an industry-facing production of Wildhorn's Wonderland with Racheal Owens and Frances Williams |
7:50 pm |
Vocal Health Practice for Musical Theatre Students with Catherine Kimmance |
8:00 pm |
Voice as Gesture and Experience: Two Performative Paradigms in Contemporary Musical Theatre with Anca Markos |
8:10 pm |
Technique You Can See with Jeremy Ryan Mossman |
8:20 pm |
And All That Jazz: How professional musical theatre performers experience and manage vocal challenges when executing Fosse choreography, and how these insights inform more integrated and sustainable voice and movement pedagogy in training institutions: A Practice-led investigation with Cathrine Hopkins |
8:30 pm |
Round Table DiscussionExpert Panel: Mary Saunders Barton, Besfort Williams and Scott Harrison.
|
The full symposium will be recorded for catch-up at a later date if you cannot attend live.
View the full programme:
Sorry, this is an archived short course...
We have plenty of upcoming short courses coming soon. See details of some of them below or look at the full list of short courses.
Monday 12th January 2026
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
Tuesday 13th January 2026
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
Wednesday 14th January 2026
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
Thursday 15th January 2026
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
Tuesday 20th January 2026
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
Wednesday 21st January 2026
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
(London Time)
Level One Certificate in Accents and Phonetics
Louisa Morgan
Are you a voice, acting, or singing coach looking to expand your expertise and add accents and phonetics to your teaching repertoire? This 6-session course covers essential topics such as articulatory, acoustic, and auditory phonetics, the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), and ethical approaches to accent and dialect coaching. By the end of this course, you'll be equipped with the knowledge and practical skills to start to bring phonetics and accent coaching into your coaching and provide more comprehensive support to your clients.
Monday 12th January 2026
2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
(London Time)
Emerging and Developing Voice: Singing and Speech
Karen Brunssen
How does the singing voice influence the speaking voice? How does the speaking voice influence the singing voice? When is there a disparate relationship between the two? Can they help each other? Can one harm the other? How can we use them positively in the voice studio. During this short course we will consider the voice as we sing and as we speak. The acquisition of language is a very interesting journey from birth through old age. We will broach the topics of “lexical” which refers to learning words, and “semantic” which is how we use words in the context of language.
Monday 12th January 2026
5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
(London Time)
Perfectionism: A Theoretical & Clinical Overview
Dr David Juncos
What exactly is meant when we label ourselves or someone we know a perfectionist? It is a good to be this way? Or are you setting yourself up for failure? Can a performance psychologist or a other performance-related practitioner help you if you’re a perfectionist? In this short course, you will learn how perfectionism is defined according to popular models in clinical psychology, and whether it is maladaptive or adaptive. You will also learn how perfectionism impacts on music performance anxiety, in addition to other areas of importance for performing musicians, like work-related stress and burnout, and procrastination with one’s practice.