The Human Voice -- As You've Never Heard It Before

VoiceBox is a weekly public radio and podcast series dedicated to exploring the human voice -- the oldest and most personal of all musical instruments.

An independent project launched under the auspices of KALW 91.7 FM San Francisco in January 2010 and now available on several stations throughout California as well as via a free weekly podcast on iTunes ('kalwvoicebox'), VoiceBox seeks to highlight and contextualize the work of singers, songwriters and voice experts from across a wide range of backgrounds, while stimulating in-depth, high quality discussion about the human voice and encouraging listeners to both broaden their musical horizons and participate in singing activities of their own.

VoiceBox capitalizes upon the tremendous popularity of vocal music in the United States and beyond.

According to a recent study by Chorus America, an estimated 32.5 million adults regularly sing in choruses today, up from 23.5 million in 2003. There are more than 500 choral groups in the Bay Area alone and more than one in five households nationwide have at least one singing family member, making choral singing the most popular form of participation in the performing arts for both adults and children. In recent years, singing has lately become the subject of a number of mainstream television shows such as American Idol, The Sing-Off, Smash, The Voice and Glee.

Yet despite the great artistic, social and health benefits of singing and its popularity among specific sectors of the population, there seems to be no place for people who love listening to vocal music or participating in singing activities to go to get focused, contextual reflection about their passion.

In response to this woeful state of affairs in the media and the public’s obvious passionate engagement with singing, VoiceBox aims to celebrate vocal music artists in the same intelligent, wide-ranging and in-depth manner as Terry Gross and Michael Krasny highlight authors, filmmakers and other cultural figures on national and Bay Area public radio respectively.

Each hour-long, thematically-organized show in the VoiceBox series is dedicated to exploring a particular vocal music topic such as why we sing, children’s choruses, singing and neuroscience, transgendered singers, fach, vocal music of the Indian subcontinent, yodeling, Kurt Weill, duetting couples, and hip-hop artists who sing as well as rap.  The project also aims to reach broader audiences through the development of an accompanying podcast series and web portal.

Listen in on Fridays on KALW 91.7 FM San Francisco (10-11pm) and KZSU 90.1 FM Stanford (5-6pm), or via on-demand webstream at www.kalw.org. VoiceBox is also available as a weekly podcast via iTunes ('kalwvoicebox') and on Los Angeles' KUSC 91.5 FM website (kusc.org.) KUSC also occasionally airs Classically-themed shows from the VoiceBox archives on Saturdays (8-9pm.) Visit kusc.org for more details.

About VoiceBox host & executive producer, Chloe Veltman

Chloe Veltman is a British, Denver-based singer and arts journalist. Chloe is the arts editor for Colorado Public Radio and has contributed articles to many media organizations including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, American Theatre Magazine, The Guardian, BBC Classical Music Magazine, Gramophone Magazine and WQXR. She served as the associate producer of - and a script-writer for - the radio component of NPR's latest Keeping Score classical music documentary series, and as the resident dramaturg for the Berkeley Symphony. Chloe is a recipient of a 2012-2013 Humanities Center Fellowship at Stanford University where she worked on a study about vocal music culture in the US. Previously, she was a 2011-2012 John S. Knight Journalism Fellow, also at Stanford University. Chloe has sung mezzo-soprano with many vocal ensembles, most recently the 14-member Convivium vocal ensemble and the a cappella quintet Full Fathom Five. Chloe's daily arts blog, "lies like truth," can be found at ArtsJournal.com. She can be reached directly at c h l o e (at) c h l o e v e l t m a n (dot) c o m

VoiceBox Team:

Host and Executive Producer: Chloe Veltman
Producer: Seth Samuel
General Manager, KALW: Matt Martin
Social Media Manager: Elio Bucky
Web Editor: Mari Amend & Nayantara Jain

VoiceBox Advisory Council:

Deke Sharon
Frederica von Stade
Jeremy Faust
Karen Ames
Ken Grant
Marc Vogl
Matt Martin
Matthew Scherb
Mickey Butts