The Australian Voice Association
By Cecilia Pemberton
I am very much looking forward to returning to Adelaide to present at the 2018 Australian Voice Association’s National Voice Meeting: Voice on! The Road to Recovery.
It is interesting to reflect how far the AVA has come, since the Inaugural Voice Symposium was held in Adelaide in May 1991 at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. I was on the organising committee for that symposium along with Alison Russell, Jan Baker, David Close and Alison Bagnall.
The Keynote speaker was Dr Robert Bastian, then Professor of Otolaryngology at Loyola University School of Medicine, Washington. He is the Founder and President of the Bastian Voice Institute. Professor Bastian’s interests in the field of laryngology encompassed both voice and swallowing with a special interest in the needs of professional voice users. What a wonderful choice of speaker he was, so generous in his knowledge and time. He had an infectious enthusiasm for the idea of collaboration of all the professionals interested in voice.
As a committee we were impecunious, but Professor Bastian generously agreed to present with no remuneration. We were indeed very fortunate. He was so encouraging of our endeavours not only for the symposium but also to build an association to foster collaboration. We did of course have some anxious moments, especially as we were spending money we didn’t actually have and weren’t sure anyone would attend! We were soon rewarded when registration opened, the response was overwhelming. We quickly broke even and had soon made a profit. 200 delegates attended that inaugural symposium; speech pathologists, ENTs, teachers of singing and voice coaches.
The success of the symposium was the impetus for the formation of the AVA. By the end of 1991, Alison Russell, Jan Baker and I had established the AVA with a charter to foster collaboration between all voice professionals in the education, research and care of voice users.
The financial success of the inaugural symposium meant that, from then on, seeding funds were available for future AVA organising committees.
So it is, many successful symposia later, that the current AVA committee have put together a very exciting, diverse programme which will encompass care and rehabilitation of the singing and spoken voice in both the adult and paediatric fields.
We are so fortunate to have Leda Scearce as the keynote speaker. I recently watched an interview that Liz Johnson Schafer did of Leda as part of “Interviews on Voice Matters”. Leda talks about her background as a professional singer before retraining as a speech pathologist and also her philosophy for the rehabilitation of the singing voice. I highly recommend watching the video https//you.be/0bpwU-Fjr50 .
I also saw a webinar of Leda presenting as part of the 2018 Performance Voice Conference at The University of Utah, Voice Disorders Centre. Leda ran a very successful master class. It was so interesting to see her at work with some young singers. I’m sure she will be a treat to have at the 2018 AVA National Voice Meeting.
Also on the programme this year is Nicole Free. For those of you who don’t know Nicole, check out her 3-minute thesis: https://youtu.be/3ebmlZbJgcQ. She is now through to the Asia Pacific finals.
I look forward to seeing you in Adelaide.
Also on the programme this year is Nicole Free. For those of you who don’t know Nicole, check out her 3-minute thesis: https://youtu.be/3ebmlZbJgcQ. She is now through to the Asia Pacific finals.
Cecilia Pemberton is a speech pathologist in her private practice, Voice Care
Australia and at the Voice Assessment Centre at St Vincent’s Clinic, Sydney. In 1991, she co-founded the Australian Voice Association after the Inaugural Australian Voice Symposium in Adelaide. Her research has covered the normative data for endoscopic examination of the larynx, changes in speaking fundamental frequency in women’s voice with age and intergenerational and most recently the effectiveness of prevention and early intervention programmes for voice problems in teachers. Cecilia is co-author of Voice Care for Teachers DVD.
In 2009 she was awarded Fellowship by Speech Pathology Australia for her contribution to the profession. Her voice care programme for teachers with the Catholic Education Diocese of Wollongong has been a finalist in both the NSW Safe Work Awards (2009) and the Australian Human Resources Institute, Martin Seligman Award for Health and Wellbeing (2015). In 2014 she won the British Voice Association Van Lawrence Prize for her paper “Efficiently and Cost Effectively Managing Teachers’ Voice Problems”.
To register for the AVA National Voice Meeting and AGM 2018 click here:
“Unless stated otherwise, this article represents only the views of the author and not the views of the AVA”