Jenna Brown’s Scholarly Success!

We send our warmest congratulations to current MA Voice Pedagogy student Jenna Brown, who has recently been accepted onto a PhD starting in January 2024 at University College London (UCL)!

Jenna is a mezzo-soprano performing as a soloist in concert and recital, as well as in choirs. Working as a teacher, vocal coach and conductor too, she teaches singers of all ages both 1:1 and in groups. Jenna also has expertise in inclusive education and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) in respect of this work.

Jenna spent several years working as a secondary school teacher and teacher trainer – as well as singing classically on the semi-professional circuit – before she came to the realization that she wanted to sing full time professionally, which in turn fostered a desire for teaching and learning. She began to offer a singing teaching service and subsequently found Voice Study Centre to be the perfect fit for updating her pedagogical knowledge while also building on her previous research experience in a new discipline. This was due mainly to the MA Voice Pedagogy course’s “excellent tutors and speakers”, as well as its online, part-time nature which allowed her to continue performing and teaching.

Studying on the MA course has (in Jenna’s words) been “insightful, fulfilling, supportive, challenging and fun” and has not only given her the confidence to submit papers for publication and conferences, but also position herself as an emerging leader in her field. Her work has been published in the likes of Voice and Speech Review 2022 and the Journal of Voice 2023 (co-author), while she has presented at a number of conferences including the International Congress of Voice Teachers (Vienna), the Voice and Speech Trainers Association (Mexico) and the International Symposium on Performance Science (Warsaw).

Since starting her Master’s degree, Jenna has also:

• Driven the formation of a new research group – the Transformative Methodologies Research Group – which launched at the 2023 VASTA Annual Conference;
• Become the Music Leader for the vocal section of her local music service;
• Become a freelance writer for Music Teacher Magazine;
• And set up her own business to be launched this autumn. Bristol Voice Care will provide vocal rehabilitation, manual therapy and singing teaching services across the southwest of the UK.

Jenna’s MA research has included significant research on imagery in voice pedagogy, ethics, policy and practice voice rehabilitation. She began by examining imagery strategies and how they do, or do not, correspond to our updated understanding of voice and performance science. This was then researched further in the context of choral directing and adolescent vocal health. More recent modules have taken the vocal health aspect of this work further and explored the practical and ethical challenges of singing teachers providing voice rehabilitation.

Both of these themes will combine in her upcoming PhD research titled: Exploring Clean Language Coaching As An Applied Epistemological Framework For Singing Voice Rehabilitation. Under the supervision of Professor Graham Welch and Professor Evangelos Himonides, Jenna will undertake her PhD part-time at UCL. She is relishing the chance to combine her MA research on imagery and voice rehabilitation into one project and hopes it will contribute to a multi-discipline pathway for singing teachers to be involved in this work with clear guidelines, support and training.

“Of course, it might take me in a completely different direction!”, though, she says. “That’s the joy of the journey!”