Instructors
Private sessions are available online and in person with any Official VVT Instructor. Each of our instructors is unique and designs their sessions differently depending on their own specific area of expertise. Read more below to find an instructor.
David Ley
Creator
Edmonton, Alberta (Available for sessions online and in person)
Email: [email protected]
David Ley holds an MFA in performance from York University with a diploma in Voice Teaching. He is a Professor in the Drama Department at the University of Alberta where he teaches Voice and Speech, Dialects, and Acting. David has extensive experience in private practice teaching vocal skills to a wide array of professional voice users from schoolteachers to politicians and has taught many voice workshops both across Canada and abroad. He spent ten seasons as a Voice Coach at Canada’s Stratford Festival and continues to be a regular instructor in Stratford’s Birmingham Conservatory. He has done numerous feature newspaper interviews commenting on dialects and vocal performance and has been featured in two CBC documentaries on Canadian speech. Media outlets around the world have covered his work on the Vibrant Voice Technique including: the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, The Guardian UK, the Huffington Post, Metro News International, and many others. David has 30 years of experience working as an actor in theatres across Canada and has acted in numerous film and television productions.
Elissa Weinzimmer
Director
New York, New York (Available for sessions online and in person)
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.voicebodyconnection.com
Elissa Weinzimmer is a vocal health educator and the founder of Voice Body Connection. Her mission is to help performers and professional speakers share their authentic voices more fully and more often. She is also the creator of How Your Voice Works, the online course explaining the anatomy and mechanics of the human voice.
Elissa attended the University of Alberta to earn her MFA in Theatre Voice Pedagogy, where she encountered David Ley and his idea to use vibrators for the voice. In 2013 she began working with David to build Vibrant Voice Technique, serving as the Managing Director of the company for three years. Elissa is also a certified instructor of Fitzmaurice Voicework® and Hatha yoga, and in 2014 she was the recipient of the Clyde Vinson Memorial Award from the Voice and Speech Trainers Association (VASTA). She is based in New York City, where she teaches at Anthony Meindl’s Actors Workshop, coaches individuals, and works regularly with theatre, film, media, and corporations. Elissa is also a director, a performer, an avid yogi, and a meditator.
The following teachers have completed the VVT Instructor Program, and are Official Instructors of Vibrant Voice Technique. Please scroll down to find a teacher in your geographic area or matching your area of interest.
Stacey Cabaj
Baton Rouge, Louisiana (Available for sessions online and in person)
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.staceycabaj.com
Stacey is an award-winning actress, voice coach and teacher, currently serving as the Associate Head of the M.F.A. Acting Program and Assistant Professor of Voice and Speech at Louisiana State University. She works primarily with actors, musical theatre singers, and professional voice users to support their healthy, expressive, and powerful communication. Her teaching uses the exercises of Vibrant Voice Technique® in complement to other methodologies of Theatre Voice, supporting the unique background and abilities of each client.
Norma Churchill
Toronto, Ontario (Available for sessions online and in person)
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.normachurchill.com
With over 25 years’ voice teaching experience to her credit, Norma is pleased to now incorporate VVT into her holistic approach. After completing a voice performance degree at the University of Toronto, Norma furthered her studies in London, England. Several years of private study with teachers and coaches from the Guildhall School of Music and Covent Garden led her to performances in Europe including a national solo tour of Poland. While overseas, lessons in Alexander Technique impacted her approach to singing so profoundly that it became a foundation for her teaching. She now has a thriving studio in downtown Toronto, teaching students of all ages and styles. In addition, Norma teaches privately at St. Michael’s Choir School, The Kingsway Conservatory of Music in Etobicoke and is a member of the College of Examiners of the RCM. Becoming an Official Vibrant Voice instructor now enables her to offer this technique to her students, as required, in their lessons. Group or individual instruction is now also available in VVT for other singers, actors, teachers, or anyone who may find their voice fatigues easily and wants to learn to use it more efficiently.
Alexis Moore Eytinge
Portland, Oregon (Available for sessions online and in person)
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.alexismoet.com
Alexis provides services for those wanting to improve their vocal quality and ease, coaching performance artists as well as teachers, customer service representatives, and public speakers. Vibrant Voice Technique provides a quick and easy way to communicate with muscles that need attention for anyone struggling with their vocal health. Whether to improve resonance or sharpen articulation for presentations, Vibrant Voice provides great exercises to warm up the body and spark muscle engagement. Alexis’ technique focuses on breath work, muscle tension, confidence and presentation. It also uses Body Mapping, which looks at how the brain understands the structure, function and size of the body. This is most useful for reoccurring injuries, pain or discomfort associated with performing. Alexis has a background in singing, acting, as well as, training as a fitness instructor.
Claudia Friedlander
New York, New York (Available for sessions online and in person)
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.claudiafriedlander.com
Claudia Friedlander is a voice teacher and fitness expert based in New York City. In her early years of teaching, frustration with the mechanical dysfunction some of her students possessed motivated her to study kinesiology. Since receiving her certification as a fitness trainer from the National Academy of Sports Medicine, she has applied the concept of sport-specific training to singing. Dr. Friedlander has presented vocal fitness workshops for The Voice Foundation and the Performing Arts Medicine Association, and has been an invited panel discussant for OPERA America and NATS. Her students perform on Broadway and at leading opera houses. She contributes a monthly column to Classical Singer Magazine and authors a widely read and cited blog, The Liberated Voice. She serves on the faculty of the Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall, where her most recent project was the development, in collaboration with Joyce DiDonato, of The Singer’s Audition Handbook, a career development guide for young singers.
Jay Miller
Toronto, Ontario (Available for sessions online and in person)
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.voiceandspeech.com
With a master’s degree and over twenty years of successful practice as a voice coach, Jay provides expert training in vocal development and public speaking for business clients around the world. He has an avid YouTube audience and especially enjoys working with leaders and other professionals who are enthusiastic, open‐minded, and committed to personal growth. Jay offers Vibrant Voice Technique for anyone experiencing vocal strain and fatigue, for beginning students seeking a unique and accessible approach, and for experienced speakers who wish to optimize their abilities.
Michael Ojo
London, Hertfordshire (Available for sessions online and in person)
Email: [email protected]
Michael is dedicated to helping all singers, vocalists and performers develop a healthy vocal technique, so that they can vocally ‘EXPRESS’ themselves; ‘EFFECTIVELY’, in whatever genre or style they so wish to; with ‘LONGEVITY’. Teachings incorporate the principles of Vibrant Voice Technique, to help reduce excessive muscular tension throughout the body; thereby, enhancing and increasing your own unique tone, range and resonance.
Pamela Prather
New York City Metro Area (Available for sessions online and in person)
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.pamelaprather.com
Pamela Prather is thrilled to be part of the inaugural VVT official instructor training group. She is a professor, a vocal/dialect coach, and an executive presence coach. Pamela has served on the faculty of Yale School of Drama, NYU and UCLA and is currently an Assistant Professor of Theatre at SUNY Purchase College. She received her MFA in Acting from UCLA and is certified in Fitzmaurice Voicework®, Laughter Yoga and Prana Yoga. She has used these techniques to create work she has developed called Laughing Voice®. She has coached over 20 productions for the the Tony Award® winning Alley Theatre. She has also coached for: Tony Award® winning Cleveland Play House, Dallas Theater Center, Yale Repertory Theatre, Hartford Stage Company, Primary Stages (NYC), Bay Street Theatre (NY), Underwood Theatre (NYC), The Play Company (NYC), The Edge Theatre Company (NYC), New York Classical Theatre, St. Ann’s Warehouse, Dance Theatre Workshop (NYC), Hampton’s Shakespeare Festival.
Eric Stewart
Northeast Ohio, West of Cleveland
Email: [email protected]
Eric came to Vibrant Voice work through a longstanding interest in the relationship between free expression in the body and free expression in the voice. This interest extends especially to teachers and others working in professions that involve sustained vocal activity. Eric has taught yoga and has worked as a practitioner of manual therapy for more than 20 years. As a trainer of yoga teachers for the past 15 years he has developed programs that help people coordinate awareness of breath, movement, and voice in order to communicate with more freedom, ease, and clarity, while avoiding strain and vocal burnout.
Eric especially enjoys working with teachers, and has lots of experience working with yoga instructors in particular. And with his background in breathing physiology and anatomy, he has a lot to offer to speakers and singers who are looking to address their difficulties from those points of reference.
