Professor Betty Moulton - Voice, Speech and Text specialist, Canada

Dear Richard,

I read with great dismay and frankly, anger, of the pending cuts to CPR funding. Your organization has brought so many diverse people together to share ideas, approaches, and theories of how we communicate with our voices. The cross-cultural understanding promoted by your activities and publications is a major force in the world of communication.

I had the privilege of attended the Giving Voice Festival in 2004, in Aberystwyth and Cardiff. There I experienced first hand, the work of a diverse set of master teachers, and your organization facilitated my interviewing of them for an article I published in VASTA's Voice and Speech Review in 2007. The theories and practices of these teachers and visionaries in the world of speaking and singing has therefore been represented and disseminated to many others who could not attend those vibrant and inspiring sessions. There is no other organization that brings together vocal theory and practice with the spirit of international exploration, in the way that CPR does. It is an extremely important voice that influences many fields of study within the human condition: psychology, philosophy, religion, sociology, linguistics, drama/theatrical performance, etc. The teachers I worked with at that Festival were operating in all those spheres as they delved with us into the very nature of communication.

Yours is a voice that must continue to be heard. I add mine to your protest of the funding cuts from the Arts Council of Wales.

Sincerely,


Professor Betty Moulton
Voice, Speech and Text specialist
Coordinator of the MFA in Theatre Voice Pedagogy
Department of Drama
University of Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada