Musicians take good care of their violins, guitars, and saxophones. Dancers and actors treat their bodies—which they also call their instrument— with enormous care.
A singer’s larynx and vocal folds, deep inside their throat, are a less visible but no less precious and fragile instrument of their art form. A years-long partnership between the vocal performance department at the Frost School of Music and the otolaryngology department at the Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine gives Frost School vocal students—whether aspiring performers or educators—an invaluable understanding of how to keep their voices healthy and performing at their best.
Frost School professor Frank Ragsdale, chair of the vocal performance department, says the partnership is an important asset. “It’s a great recruiting tool,” said Ragsdale, who is also an associate professor in the Miller School’s otolaryngology department. “It raises our profile as a vocal department to have this collaboration.”
“This is one of the best cross-campus relationships that exists at UM,” said Dr. David E. Rosow, a surgeon, professor of otolaryngology (the treatment of ear, nose, and throat conditions), and director of the Division of Laryngology and Voice at the Miller School. Rosow has worked closely with Ragsdale’s department for 13 years and has a secondary appointment there as a professor of clinical vocal performance. “It’s to the credit of Frank and the leadership at Frost that they recognize how important this material is for these students.”
The relationship will be showcased on April 17 for World Voice Day (WVD), a global celebration of the spectacularly expressive instrument that is the human voice. The theme of the Frost and Miller Schools’ WVD event is “When Feelings Become Sound,” and features presentations and performances by faculty and students from both schools at the Knight Center for Music Innovation.
The WVD showcase will not only look at how songs from different styles expressing different kinds of emotion affect the singer’s voice, but how those emotions affect the person singing them. The presentations include the jazz tune “You Stepped Out of a Dream” to show passion and desire; “I’m breaking down” from the musical “Falsettos” to express stress and anxiety; and the Franz Schubert art song “Mein” for surprise and excitement.
“Oftentimes we don’t talk about emotion,” said Adam Lloyd, a speech pathologist and clinical associate professor at the Miller School who teaches courses in voice disorders and vocal pedagogy at the Frost School. “If the person delivering an art form to an audience is undergoing something personal, how does that affect their ability to sing? If an artist is portraying a certain emotion in the song, how does that affect their ability to sing? We think this is fascinating.”
Both Rosow and Lloyd have musical backgrounds that increase their empathy for singers and insight into the issues they face. “A lot of our colleagues who work in voice care have a background as a musician or singer,” said Lloyd. “Because it’s deeply personal and they’re passionate about it, once they figure out they have an interest in medicine or rehabilitation, they can use their passion differently.”
Lloyd is preparing to launch an internship program for Frost School graduate vocal pedagogy students, who will be able to observe operations, evaluations, and therapy sessions, increasing their understanding of how the voice is formed and treated.
Rosow trained as a violinist at New England Conservatory Prep, a youth program, and performed with the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, but opted for medicine, studying at Harvard Medical School. There, he was mentored by Dr. Steven Zeitels, probably the world’s most renowned vocal surgeon, who has treated pop stars including Cher, Steven Tyler, and Adele, who thanked him for saving her voice when she swept the 2012 GRAMMY Awards.
“There was a mind-blowing moment when I realized the overlap between music and medicine,” said Rosow. He facilitated a relationship with pop stars and Frost School supporters Gloria and Emilio Estefan, who gave a generous donation to establish the Estefan Voice Studio, a space for vocal rehabilitation and research at the Miller School. The studio, the first of its kind in Florida and one of just a few in the country, opened in 2022.
One of the most exciting things to grow out of this collaboration between music and medicine is a decade-long, in-depth study of close to 300 vocal students, with a host of tests that range from an initial vocal scope (laryngoscopy) in their first year to more in-depth exams as they progress. Lloyd has overseen the study, whose goal is to better understand how different training approaches across genres such as classical, jazz, and contemporary affect the voice’s physical health and development.
“We see that the difference between someone who has classical training versus a contemporary singer will be very different,” said Rosow, who says Lloyd has done a “phenomenal job” of overseeing a study that is the largest and longest running effort of its kind. “Doing a study like this over a long period of time is really important to assess what those differences mean.” The study is now wrapping up, and a follow-up is being discussed.
Ragsdale says the study, and his department's work with Rosow and Lloyd, are invaluable for both singers and aspiring voice teachers. “The obvious benefit for our undergraduates is they are scoped for free to get a baseline of what their vocal folds look like, and that’s a really good thing as they go through their degree and their career,” said Ragsdale. “If you have problems, like if your sound is breathy or raspy, or your voice is getting tired singing certain kinds of things, you can get scoped again and see if there are any problems before it gets too serious.”
Lloyd, who was a classically trained singer, became a pathologist after he had problems with his voice one summer while performing in multiple operettas at a festival. “It was really difficult for me,” said Lloyd. “I thought that if others are going through something similar, I want to be a part of the process of helping them.”
If you go:
The World Voice Day presentation “When Feelings Become Sound” takes place from 1:25 to 3:20 p.m. on Friday, April 17, at Newman Recital Hall in the Knight Center for Music Innovation, 5513 San Amaro Drive, Coral Gables, FL.
The program can be livestreamed at https://youtube.com/live/qaCr7RujPag?feature=share
