Lori Van Lenten has spent her career helping bring out the best in children’s voices.
“Children’s voices go through a series of changes,” said Van Lenten, the artistic and executive director VOCE/The Young Voices of Greater Augusta, who has worked in a public school classroom as a music teacher as well as with other children’s choral groups. She founded VOCE about six years ago.
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The goal of VOCE is to help children sing their best without damaging their vocal cords along the way, and it’s a niche that not many others fill. Some voice teachers are reluctant to work with children, and others may not take into consideration the science behind a child’s changing anatomy, she said.
Van Lenten has worked with theater groups in the past and cringed when music directors have lamented that they couldn’t hear the children singing. Singing louder does not mean screaming, she said.
VOCE is a performing group; however, that’s not her ultimate goal. Taking proper care of the voice is.
“A female’s voice first changes around the age of 10, and that can last until she’s 18,” said Van Lenten. “It’s a long, arduous process. You might not love what your voice is doing. You can’t fight science, but you can love who you are and learn to be the best you can.”
Through VOCE, which is Italian for voice, Van Lenten offers individual and group classes. She teaches at her studio on North Belair Road, but because of COVID-19, she also records the lessons. She’s added more sessions so there aren’t as many singers in the room at the same time.
She’s also having an eight-week workshop called Spotlight. It begins at 6:15 p.m. Feb. 2 and will run for eight weeks. The focus is to help third through 12th graders learn how to prepare for a musical theater auditions.
While education and technique are the main focuses of VOCE, there is also a performance component, Van Lenten said.
Prior to COVID-19, the group had many opportunities to sing locally as well as outside of the city. They traveled to New Orleans a couple of years ago and had been scheduled to sing at Carnegie Hall last year. The pandemic canceled that engagement. Van Lenten said she’s hoping to schedule a trip to Ireland in 2022 that would include a singing tour.
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Locally, the children have sung the national anthem at Border Bash and have been the featured entertainment at WJBF’s Golden Apple Awards. At Christmas, the group sang carols outside the Children’s Hospital of Georgia during a shift change.
In addition, VOCE has sponsored the CSRA Honor Choir, which consists of 250 fourth and fifth graders taking part in a workshop and choral concert. The event has raised funds for area charities including the Ronald McDonald House and SafeHomes Domestic Violence Intervention.
To learn more about VOCE/The Young Voices of Greater Augusta, visit www.singaugusta.com or call (706) 830-9517.
Charmain Z. Brackett is the Features Editor for The Augusta Press. Reach her at charmain@theaugustapress.com
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