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Campus Review
October 10, 2013
Martha Wood Development Grant Helps
Zeller Attend International Conference in Australia
In June of 2013, Dr.
Kurt-Alexander Zeller
was awarded a Martha
Wood
Faculty
Development Grant in
the amount of $1000
to support his presen-
tation and attendance
at
the
Eighth
International Congress of Voice Teachers
(ICVT), held July 10 to July 14, 2013 in
Brisbane, Australia.
The ICVT is a triennial event that is the
most significant international gathering of
professional educators in the field of
voice and singing and was, on this occa-
sion, being held for the first time in
Australia, as well as only the second time
ever in the Southern Hemisphere. Zeller’s
proposal for a presentation entitled “’You
Can’t Get There from Here’: Avoiding
Dead-End Results with Better (Body)
Maps” had been selected by the program
committee to be the first presentation on
Body Mapping in the voice studio ever to
be given in Australia.
The ICVT drew approximately 500 par-
ticipants from 28 nations.
“I attended master classes in both classi-
cal and commercial singing styles given
by international experts, including inter-
national opera star Håkan Hagegård,
Swedish contemporary commercial
singing coach Daniel Zanger Borch,
American Broadway coach Mary
Saunders Barton, and the renowned pop
music ensemble Take 6,” says Zeller. “I
was inspired by plenary presentations on
the psychology of music pedagogy, given
by Gary McPherson, the director of the
Melbourne Conservatorium of Music and
on the physics of vocal resonance, given
by Dr. Ingo Titze, the director of the
National Center for Voice and Speech in
Salt Lake City.
“And I attended several dozen presenta-
tions given by voice professionals from
four continents, learning about topics as
disparate as the vocal demands and
singing styles of Japanese Noh drama and
the efforts of other university teachers to
incorporate objective assessment meas-
ures into applied music teaching.”
Zeller particularly wanted to capitalize
upon the location of this particular ICVT
to learn all he could about vocal literature
by Australian composers and about curric-
ular and instructional practices in the
music training programs in Australian
higher education.
“I went to a number of sessions given by
faculty at Australian tertiary music pro-
grams, including the Australian National
University in Canberra, the Melbourne
Conservatorium of Music, and the
Queensland Conservatorium of Music,
and I enjoyed many lively informal con-
versations and exchanges with other ped-
agogues from all around Australia and
New Zealand,” he reports. “My own pres-
entation was very successful and well
received; in fact, the moderator had to
turn away people who still wanted to get
in, as the legal capacity of lecture hall had
been exceeded!”
As it turns out, Zeller’s book, “What
Every Singer Needs to Know about the
Body,” is already known in voice peda-
gogy circles in Australia and New
Zealand and he was able to cultivate what
should be useful contacts for further
development of Body Mapping in the
Southern Hemisphere.
“Not only did the Martha Wood Faculty
Development Grant assist me in attending
and presenting at this very prestigious
international conference in my field, the
support provided by the grant was really
the only reason I was able to arrange to
extend my stay in Australia and sample a
wide range of the musical culture of the
continent,” says Zeller. “I attended public
performances by Opera Queensland in
Brisbane (Rossini’s La Cenerentola) and
by the Australian Opera at the famous
Opera House in Sydney (Puccini’s Tosca)
and through the efforts of a new acquain-
tance found myself invited as a `visiting
opera director from Atlanta’ to attend a
non-public final dress rehearsal of
Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, also at
Australian Opera in Sydney. Collectively,
these three productions by three different
directors gave me significant insight into
staging practices in the Australian opera
industry.
“I returned home with new understand-
ings in studio practice, the psychology of
pedagogy, and other insights that I believe
will inform my applied voice teaching, as
well as knowledge of new repertoire
options that will expand the horizons of
our students. I also return to Georgia with
a new network of acquaintances and col-
leagues across the world who may prove
to be helpful resources for me or my
Clayton State students. For all those expe-
riences, I thank the Wood family and the
selection committee for the 2013 Martha
Wood Faculty Development Grant.”
Dr. Zeller