Northwest Chapter of The Voice Foundation

10/30/2024

Meeting announcement! Join us next Tuesday, November 5th via Zoom for our first meeting of the year

06/14/2024

06/04/2024

Introducing our final panelist for tonight’s Northwest Chapter of the Voice Foundation Meeting! Jess MacKimm (they/she), MS, CCC-SLP, has been an SLP for 5 years. They joined the UW Medicine team in 2023 where they serve as a member of a multidisciplinary voice and upper airway team and as the program lead for gender affirming voice. They work with adult and geriatric populations experiencing voice and upper airway challenges as well as the 2Spirit, transgender, and gender diverse community through gender affirming voice services.

Jess believes that “inclusive practices allow patients to access and engage in vital healthcare services,” including those provided by voice SLPs. In addition, they describe much of their role as “to assist patients engaging in the behavioral change process, which gets to the very core of how we learn and interact with the world.” They assert that “in order to help patients engage in this process, I must set up the learning environment in a way that best serves all aspects of my patients’ intersectional identities. This includes identifying my patients’ individual goals and learning styles as well as recognizing how my own personal identities and biases may influence the learning experience. By carefully constructing the learning environment to meet my patients’ individual needs, I create an inclusive environment where all patients can grow.”

In Jess’s free time, they enjoy spending time with their partner and two fur children, cooking for their chosen family, exploring in nature, and playing DnD. Tune in to the next NWCVF meeting tonight at 6pm PST to learn from Jess and our other fabulous panelists! Updated Zoom link in bio.

05/30/2024

Introducing another incredible panelist for the upcoming Northwest Chapter of the Voice Foundation Meeting! Ruchi Kapila (they/she), MS, CCC-SLP, is a voice teacher and coach, as well as a practicing SLP for the past 8 years. They own and operate Kapila Voice and Speech Services, where they work with gender affirming voice, voice disorders in private practice, Parkinson’s and post-CVA for dysphagia, dysarthria, voice, aphasia, and cognitive communication in home health.

As a voice specialist, Ruchi asserts that “the voice is an intersection of a person’s history, culture, socialization, self-concept in addition to their anatomy and physiology. We are only effective in our interventions if we are cognizant and responsive to all of it, not just what we can visualize, measure, and hear.” In addition to being a fabulous SLP and voice teacher, Ruchi is also a gamer and cat parent, “and thus quite a homebody these days.”

Tune in to the next NWCVF meeting on Tuesday, June 4th at 6pm PST to learn from Ruchi and our other amazing panelists! Updated Zoom link in bio.

05/22/2024

Meeting Announcement!
Tuesday, June 4, 6:00pm PST
The Northwest Chapter of the Voice Foundation is excited to host:
Perspectives in Promoting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity in Clinical Voice Spaces
Panel discussion featuring Ruchi Kapila, Becks K von Duering, and Jess MacKimm, hosted by C Andrew Lee.
Meeting virtually on Zoom. Link in bio!

01/30/2024

Meeting Announcement!

Tuesday, February 6, 6:00pm

The Northwest Chapter of the Voice Foundation is excited to host:

Gender Affirming Surgery for the Voice and the Emerging Science to Support Its Use

Presented by Dr. Steve Schoeff, Otolaryngologist, Kaiser Permanente

Hosted virtually on Zoom. Link in bio.

11/09/2023

We were absolutely thrilled for our November speaker, D’Arcy Smith, who is a Professor of Acting and Voice at the University of Cincinnati, CCM, and specializes in training actors for digital mediums. He teaches classes in Voice-over acting, Acting for the Camera, Acting for Motion Capture, Dialects, Voice for videogames, and Vocal Combat: Vocal Extremes for the Actor. Click the link to find out more information on his website: www.darcysmithvoice.com

Follow the link to see his publishing in the Journal of Voice: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S089219972300214X?dgcid=coauthor

08/07/2023

Gender Affirming Voice Training: A Course for Voice Clinicians and Trainers: Sandy Hirsch, Leah Helou, Christie Block

Dear Colleagues: We are excited to announce registration for the FINAL month of our FINAL Gender Affirming Voice Training: A Course for Voice Clinicians and Trainers. Sandy Hirsch is retiring in November of this year – it is our last hurrah of a course that we have taught with pride and joy since 2013. July was an exciting month with a great Q and A on July 15th. There were many excellent questions. You can still register through the end of August. Sandy Hirsch taught the course solo in 2007, Leah Helou and Sandy Hirsch taught it beginning in 2013, and Christie Block joined in 2015. AC Goldberg joined the team as a guest lecturer in 2021. It has been a journey we have taken with enormous honor, pride and humility. We have learned as much as we have taught. Join us for this last time. Registration is still open through the month of August. We recommend you give yourselves a week at least to take full advantage of the materials. The event will end on August 31.

The course this year will be a self-study offering of our 2022 event recording. The access period of the self-study will be through August 31. In addition, there will be a 90-minute live Q and A Zoom session on Saturday, August 26th with Sandy Hirsch, Leah Helou, Christie Block and AC Goldberg. Registration will include the recordings as well as the Q and A session on August 26th.

Participants will receive a certificate of registration which they will be able to use to self-report their participation to ASHA. Instructions can be found here: https://www.asha.org/certification/submitcomplianceform/.

Note: This is a course for clinicians and trainers. It is not designed for clients. There have been a couple of questions about that during June and July.

For further information, and to register for the event, go to https://tgvoicetraining2023selfstudy.eventbrite.com/. If you have questions or need a flyer in PDF form, please contact us at [email protected]. We very much look forward to presenting to you once more time and guiding you in your work.

Sandy Hirsch, Leah Helou and Christie Block

Join us to build your competence and confidence in serving transgender / gender nonconforming speakers.

04/25/2023

Very excited to announce a $20 MASTERCLASS ONLY registration for Trineice Robinson's masterclass at the upcoming Northwest Voice: The Art and Science of the Performing Voice Conference May 12-13.

During the 2-day in-person conference Trineice will present a masterclass on singing contemporary styles, Saturday at 3:15-4:45. The conference/masterclass is held in Alder Hall on the University of Washington Campus.

Please invite students, singers, teachers who might be interested in the masterclass but are perhaps not able to attend the entire conference.

Link to website/registration in the comments!

02/13/2023

Thank you to Professor Karen Brunssen of the Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University, for a wonderful and stimulating presentation. Watch this video for her talk, "The Evolving Singing Voice: The Senescent Singer"

02/07/2023

Join us right now!

February 6, 6:00pm

The Evolving Singing Voice: The Senescent Singer

Presented by

Professor Karen Brunssen
Bienen School of Music
Northwestern University

Join us for a fabulous presentation on a topic that is very pertinent to our students, patients, and/or selves. How does aging affect singing?

Have feedback or ideas? Get in touch, and follow us on social media! We look forward to seeing you.

Join Zoom Meeting
https://washington.zoom.us/j/91985499498?pwd=Yy8rTTl2SWIzR2U5dnBScC92cVRKZz09

Meeting ID 919 8549 9498
Passcode 962969

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01/30/2023

ABSTRACT SUBMISSION DEADLINE~FEBRUARY 1!
Submit your abstracts at https://www.northwestvoice.org/submissions.html
Northwest Voice Conference focuses on the intersection and integration of the art and the science of the performing voice, and vocal production in general. Our mission is to provide the latest research and information from the areas of medicine, voice science, vocal pedagogy and performance, and the assessment and treatment of voice disorders, to professionals and students in medicine, speech pathology, theater, vocal pedagogy and performance. This year, it will be held May 12-13 on the beautiful UW campus in Seattle, WA. Kerrie Obert and Trineice Robinson will be our two keynotes! Full program will be posted mid-February.

Please watch the video for more information about this unique conference. https://youtu.be/W7bhg9bo9cM

CEUs available!