Renée Yoxon: Trans Voice Teacher, Jazz and Disability Rights (re-release)

Conversations with Musicians, with Leah Roseman

06/07/25

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84m

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Archive highlight, originally released in 2023: Renée Yoxon is a trans non-binary singer, songwriter, jazz musician, and trans voice teacher.

Renee shares some beautiful and inspiring performances from their albums, as well as stories from life as a disabled person and how their disability and chronic pain has guided the direction of their career. We talk about their musical development, and their experiences both bad and good as they navigated their musical education (after finishing a degree in physics!). Renée explains the kind of work they do with trans vocal exploration and we dive into all kinds of topics in the usual tangential style of this series.

The transcript and video are linked here on my website

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Renée Yoxon website

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photo: Laurence Philomène

podcast theme music: Nick Kold

Timestamps:

(00:00:00) Intro

(00:01:21) Renée’s physics degree, start in school band, Jazz Works camp

(00:04:19) free improv group, intergenerational friendships

(00:06:38) intro to “Willow Weep for Me” by Ann Ronell

(00:08:53) “Willow Weep for Me” with René Gely

(00:13:57) piano, ukulele

(00:15:26) “Beautiful Alchemy”, film with Teagan Lance and album

(00:17:14) “Terrible Alchemy”

(00:23:19) Blossom Dearie

(00:23:52) worldless improv

(00:24:37) studies in New York, living as a disabled person, vocal technique

(00:29:33) singing in rock band “Gorgeous George”, care of the voice and endurance training

(00:32:20) trans voice aleration, TikTok success, pitch lowering, taking risks and learning to be silly

(00:40:14) gender presentation and gender identity

(00:42:35) ways we can alter the voice

(00:45:09) different languages in terms of vocal alteration, vocal fry and gendered cutural coding for vocal characteristics

(00:47:52) TikTok

(00:49:22) teaching Trans Voice Alteration to other teachers

(00:51:45) the importance of teaching business skills to musicians, University of Limerick, Edel Meade

(00:55:58) Banff, McGill, growing up in Ottawa, the importance of mentors, Mark Ferguson, René Gely

(01:00:29) social anxiety, speaking in public with a different voice or new language

(01:02:38) different people who take Renée’s courses on voice alteration

(01:03:18) songwriting, Aoife McAtamney Pink Breath

(01:04:27) “Drinking Coffee”

(01:08:58) songs “The Bad Years” about their chronic illness

(01:10:27) Kazaa music sharing, learning jazz repertoire

(01:12:53) Renée’s perspective on the music industry as a disabled person, and experiences at McGill university with lack of accessibility

(01:17:46) Mx non-binary honorific, the importance of pronouns

(01:20:32) disability rights, more about their McGill experience

(01:22:45) Montreal

Previous Episode

Ceara Conway: Irish vocalist and Visual Artist (re-release)

May 31, 2025

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82m

This was originally aired in 2023. Ceara Conway is an Irish contemporary vocalist and visual artist, and this episode features music from her album CAOIN as well as excerpts from some of her other projects. I find Ceara’s curiosity about so many important topics around arts and culture really inspiring and this conversation circled around to her explorations of different languages and cultures as well as her rootedness as an Irish speaker. She has had many interesting commissions dealing with history, illness, grief, and the natural world. She also spoke to me about some of her roles working with the Clare Arts office with artists with disabilities, how she started her career as a glassblower in Rome and how her upbringing has helped her navigate the world as a freelance artist. The video and transcript are linked here to my website

(02:36) Ceara’s background,

(17:03) the album CAOIN, Anach Cuain singing in different languages, (27:56) Ceara’s childhood (28:35) glassblowing, start in art and music,

(35:28) books

(41:23) Veriditas project

(43:01) Plant Chant

(49:18) Clare Arts Office Embrace arts and disability program

(56:00) Seoithín Seothó

(01:01:40) Georgian song, choirs

(01:06:17) Dochas

(01:09:05) Hanna Tuulikki, corncrake

(01:13:14) Time to Say Goodbye

(01:16:50) Irish language

photo: Julia Dunin

Next Episode

Heather Taves: her Beethoven Journey, Fascinating Research, Developing Creativity

June 12, 2025

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79m

Heather Taves is an acclaimed Canadian pianist, also a composer, improviser, educator and writer.

She spoke to me about her unique and inspiring Beethoven Journey, her popular weekly blog which she started in 2023 , paired with performances of all of Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas. We talked about getting to know Beethoven as a person and her fascinating research about many women that are part of this history. We also talked about Heather’s work as an educator, developing creativity and approaching teaching music from different angles. She spoke about her mentors including pianist Gil Kalish and writer Diane Shoemperlen, and her experiences travelling around the world by herself.

You can also watch this on my YouTube channel, transcript and complete show notes with suggested episodes too on my website!

Heather Taves website

It’s a joy to bring these inspiring episodes to you every week, and I do all the many jobs of research, production and publicity. Buy me a coffee?

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Waves Play from East Coast Suite

Arabesque in C major by R. Schumann

photo: Terry Manzo

(00:00) Intro

(02:25) Beethoven Journey, Nanette Streicher, sonata cycle

(08:32) Jan and Jean Narveson, Anton Kuerti, women interpreters research

(17:52) clip of R. Schumann Arabesque in C major (album linked in show notes)