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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Today's movie stars and star athletes have it rough, between the paparazzi, critics, reporters and all the others who sit and judge. It's not a ne...

  • Added: Apr 01, 2008
  • Length: :26
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The spoken language of classical music is filled with foreign names and phrases, and even conductors like Marin Alsop find it challenging to be mul...

  • Added: Apr 01, 2008
  • Length: :22
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Before becoming the conductor of the Baltimore Symphony and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Marin Alsop held leadership positions with the Long...

  • Added: Apr 01, 2008
  • Length: :24
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Getting started, whether you're writing a term paper, a novel or a piano concerto, can be tough. But you have to get off to a good start. That's ...

  • Added: Mar 31, 2008
  • Length: :21
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Conductor Marin Alsop has recorded most of Brahms' orchestral works during the last few years. Although Brahms' symphonies are epic in both sound ...

  • Added: Mar 31, 2008
  • Length: :19
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The Piano Concerto No. 5 by Saint-Saens is known as the "Egyptian" Concerto, because it includes a melody from a song Saint-Saens heard while vacat...

  • Added: Mar 31, 2008
  • Length: :25
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With her constant jet setting from state to state, and continent to continent, violinist Sarah Chang says she's become a "frequent flyer mileage qu...

  • Added: Mar 31, 2008
  • Length: :24
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The Saint-Saens Piano Concerto No. 2 begins quite dramatically with a thick, almost foggy texture. But, in the second movement, pianist Jean-Yves ...

  • Added: Mar 31, 2008
  • Length: :19
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Vivaldi wrote his set of violin concertos, known as the "Four Seasons," for the orchestra at an all-girls school and orphanage. For violinist Sara...

Bought by WEKU


  • Added: Mar 31, 2008
  • Length: :23
  • Purchases: 1
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Star gazing, and our occasional infatuation with celebrities, dates back long before movies and television. Pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet (ZHhahn-Ev...

  • Added: Mar 31, 2008
  • Length: :25
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Calling a political opponent a "flip-flopper" is one of the more frequently heard accusations heard on the campaign trail. While changing one's vi...

  • Added: Mar 31, 2008
  • Length: :22
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The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra plays to the beat of a different conductor - they don't have one. Each member is a conductor or a "leader" as they p...

  • Added: Mar 31, 2008
  • Length: :22
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As one builds and then maintains a career, there's the hope we'll maintain enough of the passion that initially inspired our career choice. It's n...

  • Added: Mar 31, 2008
  • Length: :22
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Pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet has recorded nearly every piano work by Erik Satie. His music could be melancholy and mysterious. Thibaudet says Sati...

  • Added: Mar 31, 2008
  • Length: :23
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The cynical judgment often leveled against Vivaldi is he wrote the same concerto 100 times. Vivaldi fans respond to that charge with varying degre...

Bought by WEKU


  • Added: Mar 31, 2008
  • Length: :22
  • Purchases: 1
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In the collection of Bach piano pieces known as the Well-Tempered Clavier, you're most likely hearing a perfect piece of musical construction. But...

  • Added: Feb 29, 2008
  • Length: :25
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In Beethoven's 6th Symphony, known as his "Pastoral" Symphony, each movement depicts a very specific moment in nature, from a scene by a brook to a...

  • Added: Feb 29, 2008
  • Length: :22
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When you think of the Canadian Brass, what comes to mind? How about five players who play great and who really know how to have a fun time on stag...

  • Added: Feb 29, 2008
  • Length: :18
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It's not enough to just play the notes; a performer takes great efforts to put their own personal stamp on the music they play. Pianist Angela Hew...

  • Added: Feb 29, 2008
  • Length: :23
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Ask any musician what makes their instrument special, and maybe better than any other instrument, and they almost always point to the same characte...

  • Added: Feb 29, 2008
  • Length: :23