Summary
Objectives
The American musical theatre industry is a multibillion dollar business in which the
requirements for singers are varied and complex. This study identifies the musical
genres and voice requirements that are currently most requested at professional auditions
to help voice teachers, pedagogues, and physicians who work with musical theatre singers
understand the demands of their clients' business.
Study Design
Frequency count.
Methods
One thousand two thirty-eight professional musical theatre audition listings were
gathered over a 6-month period, and information from each listing was categorized
and entered into a spreadsheet for analysis.
Results
The results indicate that four main genres of music were requested over a wide variety
of styles, with more than half of auditions requesting genre categories that may not
be served by traditional or classical voice technique alone.
Conclusions
To adequately prepare young musical theatre performers for the current job market
and keep the performers healthily making the sounds required by the industry, new
singing styles may need to be studied and integrated into voice training that only
teaches classical styles.
Key Words
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References
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: January 27, 2014
Accepted:
October 11,
2013
Footnotes
First presented at the Voice Foundation Symposium; June 2, 2013; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Identification
Copyright
© 2014 The Voice Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
