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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Gershwin's "An American In Paris" captures both the American spirit and the bustling, jazzy sounds of Paris in the 1920's. Conductor Andrew Litton...

Bought by WITF and New England Public Media


  • Added: Sep 29, 2006
  • Length: :36
  • Purchases: 2
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Without question, the beauty and craftsmanship within Brahms "Variations on a Theme by Paganini" are substantial. 2005 Van Cliburn Piano Competiti...

Bought by WITF, Northeast Indiana Public Radio, and New England Public Media


  • Added: Oct 02, 2006
  • Length: :25
  • Purchases: 3
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Russian composer Dimitri Shostakovich spent most of his entire creative life worrying about whether his government was going to send him to jail or...

Bought by WITF and New England Public Media


  • Added: Oct 02, 2006
  • Length: :22
  • Purchases: 2
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One person's trash is another person's treasure. Violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg readily admits the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto is mostly fluff...

Bought by WITF and New England Public Media


  • Added: Oct 28, 2006
  • Length: :26
  • Purchases: 2
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In our eternal quest to find a brilliant summary of Mozart's contribution to classical music and the world at large, here is Roy Goodman. The Brit...

Bought by WHRV, Eclectic 89.1 WBCX, WITF, and New England Public Media


  • Added: Oct 28, 2006
  • Length: :34
  • Purchases: 4
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Roy Goodman offers his respect for trumpet players who play those stratospheric high notes in Bach's Brandenburg Concerto Number 2, but points out ...

Bought by WITF and New England Public Media


  • Added: Oct 30, 2006
  • Length: :32
  • Purchases: 2
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The cello is an upside down violin planted in the ground -- so says cellist Lynn Harrell. That makes the instrument the perfect foil for some tast...

Bought by WITF and New England Public Media


  • Added: Oct 30, 2006
  • Length: :28
  • Purchases: 2
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What really motivated Sibelius to write his Violin Concerto? Violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg says he wrote this "ridiculously, unnecessarily aw...

Bought by WITF and New England Public Media


  • Added: Oct 30, 2006
  • Length: :27
  • Purchases: 2
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Each instrument, whether it's the oboe or the triangle, has its own distinctive quality or quirk -- the one element that makes it different from an...

Bought by WITF and New England Public Media


  • Added: Oct 31, 2006
  • Length: :34
  • Purchases: 2
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Where have all the young people gone? Surprise! Some, at least, are at classical music concerts. That's one encouraging trend pianist Jean-Yves ...

Bought by WITF and New England Public Media


  • Added: Oct 31, 2006
  • Length: :35
  • Purchases: 2
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Everyone has their favorite piece of music. For Violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, it has always been the Brahms Violin Concerto. Her challenge ...

Bought by WITF and New England Public Media


  • Added: Oct 31, 2006
  • Length: :33
  • Purchases: 2
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Cellist Lynn Harrell, like all serious musicians, dedicates himself to the music and it's composer. What sets him apart from some other musicians ...

Bought by WITF and New England Public Media


  • Added: Nov 01, 2006
  • Length: :28
  • Purchases: 2
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Who knows best? When it comes to classical music, conductor Roy Goodman says it's not the conductor, the first violinist or the music critic. It'...

Bought by WITF and New England Public Media


  • Added: Nov 01, 2006
  • Length: :35
  • Purchases: 2
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Each instrument has at least one quality or characteristic that makes it different than the rest. Cellist Lynn Harrell says composers have used th...

Bought by WITF and New England Public Media


  • Added: Nov 02, 2006
  • Length: :28
  • Purchases: 2
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The French Horn is hard enough to play in its modern-day set up of valves, extra tubing and other gadgetry. But the original French Horn, the Natu...

Bought by WITF and New England Public Media


  • Added: Nov 02, 2006
  • Length: :34
  • Purchases: 2
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Some of America's earliest classical music came from the Moravians, a German Protestant sect, who settled in isolated regions of Pennsylvania and N...

Bought by WITF, New England Public Media, and KWAX


  • Added: Nov 29, 2006
  • Length: :26
  • Purchases: 3
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There's a longstanding debate over the appropriate time of year to perform Handel's "Messiah." With its Christmas and Easter messages, is it more ...

Bought by WKYU, WITF, New England Public Media, KISU, and KWAX


  • Added: Nov 29, 2006
  • Length: :28
  • Purchases: 5
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Recycling one's own music was a common practice in Handel's day. Interestingly, or strangely, one of the best known choruses from Handel's Messiah...

Bought by WITF, New England Public Media, and KWAX


  • Added: Nov 29, 2006
  • Length: :29
  • Purchases: 3
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What makes Handel and Handel's Messiah so powerful and magnificent? That may seem like a question with no complete answer or a long list of answer...

Bought by WITF, New England Public Media, and KWAX


  • Added: Nov 30, 2006
  • Length: :33
  • Purchases: 3
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Tired of the same old Holiday Music? Pianist Stephen Hough has a few holiday tunes to add to your list. While they're not specifically Christmas ...

Bought by WITF and New England Public Media


  • Added: Nov 30, 2006
  • Length: :30
  • Purchases: 2