Virtuoso Voices(tm)

Series produced by Listener Directed Productions, Inc.

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Virtuoso Voices is a collection of timely and topical sound bites from classical music's leading performers. Each sound bite (or clip) will bring your listeners an insider's perspective to the classical music they enjoy on your station. Virtuoso Voices offers classical music announcers an additional way to enhance their breaks by using the voice of the artist whose recording they're about to play on their shift.

Virtuoso Voices is an interview clip service for classical music stations, presenting today's most influential classical music performers, conductors and composers talking in 20 to 35 second clips.

These topical and evergreen sound bites will enable announcers to bring an additional insider's perspective to the music they play on their shifts.

For example, an announcer playing Joshua Bell's recent recording of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto could introduce it by using a clip of Mr. Bell talking about how he tries to bring a fresh sound to this very familiar work. After the clip, the announcer returns and segues into playing the recording.

The Virtuoso Voices service provides you a Suggested Host Intro to effectively set up each clip, and includes a brief Outro to help you segue to the music. Your announcers can use this copy verbatim, or as inspiration to write their own version.

Virtuoso Voices clips are versatile. In addition to music intros, you can also use them to enhance forward promotion, create compelling billboards and create content for your website.

Virtuoso Voices provides stations with a new strategy for presenting classical music on the radio by directly involving the performer in the introduction of the music. These topical and evergreen clips enable announcers to bring an additional insider's perspective to the music they introduce and play on their shifts.

Program content is taken from interviews with internationally recognized classical music performers, such as Gil Shaham, Yo-Yo Ma, Marin Alsop, Lorin Maazel, Joshua Bell, Hilary Hahn and Michael Tilson Thomas.

As of January 2010, we are offering our Virtuoso Voices Performer Clips to all stations for free. We offer three types of distribution.

-- Downloaded off our ftp site: no charge

-- Downloaded from PRX: (triple PRX points) – requires PRX station membership

-- 10 months a year, receive a CD: $100 flat fee to cover postage and handling for the year.

For more information and to see additional ways to use these clips, please visit our website, www.virtuosovoices.org.

Signing up is easy and free. To receive a short subscription form, please send an email to info (at) listenerdirect.org or call (703) 751-0342.

Virtuoso Voices™ Fundraising Service

Virtuoso Voices(tm) is also Public Radio's primary source for classical music fundraising messages.

Twice a year, we provide your station with three types of fundraising messages, with options enabling you to customize each spot to the specific sound and fundraising terminology of your station. These messages, from performers like Anne-Sophie Mutter, Sarah Chang and Jean-Yves Thibaudet, follow Public Radio's Best Practices for fundraising.

These produced fundraising messages are distributed in February and September in advance of when most stations fundraise, including the nationally coordinated drives. Stations may request custom fundraising scripts read by the performers we interview. We fill these requests whenever possible and in the order in which they are received.

Our Virtuoso Voices fundraising material is offered as a separate subscription, with fees based on market size (as determined by Arbitron) – and cover a portion of the production expenses for Virtuoso Voices.

This service includes a (minimum) of 40 fundraising messages – a combination of Custom Station Spots, Straight Read Spots, Produced Funders and Unhosted Produced Funders

-- $500 for stations with a market ranking of 1 to 50;
-- $325 for stations ranked between 51-150;
-- $150 for stations with an Arbitron market ranking of 151 and above.

Please visit the fundraising page of our website for further examples and further information. www.virtuosovoices.org/fundraising.

VIRTUOSO VOICES

"Classical Music's Virtuosos Want a Word with Your Listeners."

Virtuoso Voices is a trademark of Listener Directed Productions, Inc. Hide full description

Virtuoso Voices is an interview clip service for classical music stations, presenting today's most influential classical music performers, conductors and composers talking in 20 to 35 second clips. These topical and evergreen sound bites will enable announcers to bring an additional insider's perspective to the music they play on their shifts. For example, an announcer playing Joshua Bell's recent recording of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto could introduce it by using a clip of Mr. Bell talking about how he tries to bring a fresh sound to this very familiar work. After the clip, the announcer returns and segues into playing the recording. The Virtuoso Voices service provides you a Suggested Host Intro to effectively set up each clip, and includes a brief Outro to help you segue... Show full description


Additional Files

642 Pieces

Order by: Newest First | Oldest First
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How do performers create and craft the direction of their interpretation of the music they perform? Pianist Lang Lang brings an active imagination...

  • Added: Nov 01, 2008
  • Length: :25
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If you've ever seen the pianist Lang Lang play, you know he performs with great animation and enormous, physical gusto. Here's a little background...

  • Added: Nov 01, 2008
  • Length: :24
Caption: Joshua Bell
For those among us who question the existence of humor or levity of any kind in classical music, violinist Joshua Bell offers this piece of evidenc...

  • Added: Nov 01, 2008
  • Length: :24
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When violinist Joshua Bell plays Vivaldi's Four Seasons, he calls on his musical training and creative instincts. But he also gets some assistance...

  • Added: Nov 01, 2008
  • Length: :26
Caption: Joshua Bell
For some performers, making recordings is their bread and butter. Violinist Joshua Bell, on the other hand, is somewhat ambivalent about walking i...

  • Added: Nov 01, 2008
  • Length: :21
Caption: Joshua Bell
The story behind the "Devil's Trill" Sonata by Tartini is a dream where the Devil appears and asks the composer for violin lessons. At the end of ...

  • Added: Nov 01, 2008
  • Length: :25
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Performers, their teachers and their audience demand perfection. Since perfection really can't be achieved, that puts musicians in a compromising ...

  • Added: Nov 01, 2008
  • Length: :26
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To get an orchestra of 60 or 100 players to play like one is the eternal challenge for a conductor. Every orchestra is different but conductor JoA...

  • Added: Nov 01, 2008
  • Length: :29
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Is there an "American sound" when it comes to classical music? Conductor JoAnn Falletta makes this case for Aaron Copland. Use this 25 second cli...

  • Added: Nov 01, 2008
  • Length: :25
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Iranian composer Behzad Ranjbaran calls on the folk music and folk legends of his country to write music for the traditional orchestral setting. C...

  • Added: Nov 01, 2008
  • Length: :25
Caption: Joshua Bell
Whether you're making a speech or a presentation in public, you hope you've got some friends in the audience. That extra support is something viol...

  • Added: Nov 01, 2008
  • Length: :21
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Dutch violinist Janine Jansen comes from a musical family, and "family time" meant playing chamber music at home. She says working in that more in...

  • Added: Sep 30, 2008
  • Length: :24
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If you ever took piano lessons, you might be familiar with the Two and Three-Part "Inventions" by Bach. He wrote these short works for one of his ...

  • Added: Sep 30, 2008
  • Length: :24
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It's hard to describe the magical dialogue that takes place between the strings and the winds at the beginning of the Symphony No. 2 by Sibelius. ...

  • Added: Sep 30, 2008
  • Length: :25
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20th century Russian composers like Dmitri Shostakovich were expected to write what the Party defined as "proper" Russian music. And even though S...

  • Added: Sep 30, 2008
  • Length: :27
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Pianist and conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy is not quite sure what's more amazing - that Beethoven wrote so many remarkable pieces of music, or that h...

  • Added: Sep 30, 2008
  • Length: :22
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The political difficulties that ruled the life of Russian composer, Dmitri Shostakovich were more than just minor aggravations. His refusal to fol...

  • Added: Sep 30, 2008
  • Length: :27
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The Dutch violinist Janine Jansen has an all-Bach CD that includes the Partita Number 2. At the heart of the Partita is a slow and meditative move...

  • Added: Sep 30, 2008
  • Length: :24
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Composer Jennifer Higdon is one of the busiest, most performed and most acclaimed American composers today. From her vantage point, she understand...

Bought by WETS


  • Added: Sep 30, 2008
  • Length: :29
  • Purchases: 1
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The musician's life is a humbling up and down journey towards perfection, or at least musical expression on the highest level. If you don't get it...

  • Added: Sep 30, 2008
  • Length: :27