News / Director & Team News

VSC Lecturer Presents at Northwest Voice Conference in Seattle

Thursday 18th May 2023

Kerrie Obert, Dr Kari Ragan, Lynn Maxfield and Dr Trineice Robinson Martin

Kerrie Obert, VSC senior faculty member, was a keynote speaker at the 2023 Northwest Voice: The Art and Science of the Performing Voice Conference in Seattle, Washington May 12 and 13th.

The annual conference brings together speech language pathologists, voice teachers, singers, and laryngologists at the beautiful University of Washington campus.  Ms. Obert presented her research on twang and pharyngeal shaping and also talked about strategies to address vibrato in the studio and clinical settings.

Kerrie Obert and Scott Kovacs

The conference included lectures by over a dozen presenters and was attended by more than 150 participants. Voice Study Centre was well-represented by two MA Voice Pedagogy students, Cierra Jordan and Scott Kovac.

Ms. Obert stated that a particularly interesting lecture was given by Lynn Maxfield, PhD, who spoke about the loss of the vocal ligament with aging and his research on the use of daily high-pitched exercises to combat these changes.

Another particularly interesting lecture was given by Sandra Hirsch, speech language pathologist, who spoke on the use of vowel shapes to assist those in the transgender community.

The conference was a huge success thanks to Kari Ragan, DMA and her team Northwest Voice. If you are anywhere near the Pacific Northwest Region of the United States, please do take the opportunity to attend next year’s conference!

Kerrie Obert and Dr Trineice Robinson Martin

Dr Kari Ragan

Singer, author, and voice pedagogue Kari Ragan holds degrees from the University of Washington (DMA) and Indiana University (MM, BM). She was the recipient of the prestigious Van L. Lawrence Award (2012), the NATS Foundation Pedagogy Award (2009), and the Wicklund Singing Voice Specialist Certificate (2010), and she was selected as a Master Teacher for the NATS Intern Program in 2021.

Dr Trineice Robinson-Martin

As an internationally recognized voice pedagogue in contemporary music, Dr Trineice Robinson-Martin has dedicated her career to performing and developing...


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