Behind-the-mic at the EWVS 2025:

Victoria Lavan (EMT) SVS, RYT200, enjoys a rich and accomplished career as a singer, actor, award-winning director and teacher. Victoria is Director of Vocal Health at AMDA College for the Performing Arts in Los Angeles providing voice and vocal health services to students and faculty, professional development sessions for faculty on pertinent topics relating to voice, teaching, learning, and Estill Voice Training at every opportunity! She has also served on the voice faculties of Ventura College, Pepperdine University and UCLA Ray Bolger Musical Theatre Program.

Victoria’s own performance career spans more than 30 years and includes regional opera, symphony, concert, music theatre, cabaret, and theatre credits. A member of Theatre West, LA’s longest running professional theatre company, she serves as moderator of the Betty Garrett Musical Comedy Workshop, directing mainstage Cabaret shows and training actors to sing.

Professional associations include: Charter Voting Member of the Pan American Vocology Association, Voice Foundation, Performing Arts Medicine Association, and the National Association of Teachers of Singing where she has served as past president of NATS-LA, Regional Governor for Southern California and participated on various committees contributing to the NATS Pedagogy Resources website recommending science-informed vocal pedagogy and Estill Voice Training resources.

Victoria maintains a private voice studio for professional performers in Los Angeles and online. Her journey into the transformative work of Estill Voice Training has elevated her already thriving voice practice. Her students have been seen on Broadway in Six, Hamilton, Tina Turner the Musical, Caroline or Change, Moulin Rouge, The Book of Mormon among others. On the West-End in London in Hair, as well as national and international tours of The Book of Mormon, Beautiful, Aladdin, Dear Evan Hansen, Anastasia: The Musical, Rent, Hair, and Waitress. With Disney and Universal Studios worldwide, cruise lines worldwide, touring in bands and working in recording studios creating their own notable and recognized artistic work.

At the symposium, Victoria will present “Creating a Vocal Health Department Using Estill Voice Training.” An overview of the evolution of AMDA College for the Performing Arts’ – Los Angeles Campus Vocal Health Department from 2013 to the present.

AMDA’s Vocal Health Department provides virtual or in person appointments for vocal rest assessments and referrals, developing strategies addressing vocal fatigue concerns, gender affirming voice needs, vocal hygiene and wellness practices, guidance practicing Active Voice Rest during illness using exercises and rest in sequence, self-compassion practices and anxiety reducing strategies to list just a few of the services offered using Estill Voice Training as the central pillar for assessment tools, voice recovery, conditioning and general vocal wellness practice.

Our goal is to empower undergraduate students by introducing them to Estill Voice Training to inform them about how their voices work, identify without bias or fear their own necessary voice work, and make thoughtful decisions about voice use while training for a professional performance career. By introducing concepts and practices that suit the presenting voice concern including attractor states, lack of aesthetic bias, Effort, MCVE, Estill Operating Principles, the 13 Estill Figures and Six Vocal Qualities students also adjust their thinking about their own vocal abilities developing self-compassion, self-confidence and greater success in all their voice work.

★ Join us at the Estill World Voice Symposium 2025! Come experience inspiring presentations like this one — and so much more — live in Chicago from July 27–29, 2025. Get your tickets here and visit the official symposium page for all the details, including speakers, performers, and schedule. We can’t wait to welcome you!