IAVMT - Key Persons

Christine Isherwood M.A., VMTR (Registered Voice Movement Therapist) directs and teaches the Voice Movement Therapy Training Program, works with individual clients, conducts workshops and trainings internationally, and supervises VMT students and practitioners. She has been engaged in teaching Voice Movement Therapy internationally for more than twenty years in the UK, the USA, Europe, Asia, and Australia. She trained with the founder of VMT, Paul Newham, in London in the mid 1990s and subsequently taught with him prior to his retirement from this work. In partnership with Anne Brownell, she co-directs and co-teaches the USA Training. Christine founded the first VMT Training Program in China under the auspices of Apollo Education and Consulting in Beijing. Prior to VMT, Christine took a degree in Cultural Studies at the University of East London, UK; gained a Diploma as an Assertiveness Training Teacher with the Redwood Women's Training Organisation; undertook a two year training in Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychotherapy; and studied therapeutic healing with noted eclectic healers. She has over thirty years experience working with people, including with street homeless people in Central London; as a mental health counsellor in the fields of addiction, domestic abuse, sexuality and gender; as a group facilitator and trainer; and as a VMT practitioner with those seeking to transform themselves through the voice. She is a founding director and member of the International Association for Voice Movement Therapy. She has an MA in Clinical Mental Health Counselling from Goddard College, Vermont and holds a Certificate in Traumatic Stress Studies through the Trauma Center in Brookline, MA. Christine is a singer and writer who has written and performed in political musicals, toured the UK and Europe with theatre groups and bands, and recorded as a pop singer. She has lectured and taught at Liverpool Institute for the Performing Arts (LIPA); the Western Australian Academy for Performing Arts (WAAPA); is adjunct faculty at the Creative Integrative Expressive Arts Therapy Training Program (CREATE), Toronto, Canada; and teaches at Apollo Education, China. Christine continues to commit herself to an intensive exploration of VMT and continues to explore vocally, to write, and to learn. She currently lives in New York City.

Eva Campbell was born in Austria. She is an accomplished singer, songwriter and musician and has studied Jazz at the University of Performing Arts in Graz, Austria as well as at the Guildhall School for Music and Drama in London. Eva's search for authenticity as a human being, as a singer and a voice teacher, combined with her realisation of the interrelatedness of the voice and the nature of being human, led her to take the VMT training in America in 2004. In her practice year she worked with patients at the Jules Thorn Mental Health Day Care Centre in London and became a certified VMT practitioner in March 2007. A year later, Eva was invited to accompany Christine Isherwood and Anne Brownell as an apprentice teacher on the VMT training on Martha's Vineyard and served three years as a director for the IAVMT. In her private practice as a voice teacher and as someone who encourages people to express themselves through their voice, Eva has been working with beginners and professional singers of all ages, for over 15 years. Over the last 6 years she has focused extensively on leading group workshops in VMT, Gospel and World Music in Austria, Germany and Italy and has recently taught at the Drama Department of the Vienna Music University - the "Max Reinhardt Seminar".

Julia Norton is a singer, actor, and voice coach, with over 25 years experience teaching people how to enjoy a free and healthy voice. Born in the UK, she has been singing her whole life and teaching groups to sing since she was 18! Always compelled to understand more about the emotional story behind a singer's experience, she discovered Voice Movement Therapy in 1998 and studied for two years before qualifying as a registered practitioner and moving to San Francisco in 2000. Since that move, she has composed music for theatre & circus, music directed, produced an award-winning album ‘Lullaby Island', performed jazz and musical theatre, and trained as a voice actor. She was a teaching artist for the San Francisco Opera Guild and Summer Conservatory, has presented at conferences all around the world teaching therapists, dancers, and expressive artists how to use their voices to free their emotions and creativity, and was the former director of the International Association for Voice Movement Therapy. In 2018 she won a Voice Arts Award for her role in Disney's Star Wars game Jedi Challenges and launched her popular podcast Dark and Twisty Tales which is available on iTunes. She currently divides her time between teaching, acting, singing and getting up to stuff with her family and noisy terrier. Julia is passionate about helping people discover a free, connected, and healthy voice and would love to help you free yours!

Job Titles:

• Clinical Psychologist

"I'm lucky I found Gina and VMT (they are synonymous) and my only regret is that I didn't find her earlier in my life. VMT has changed me in ways I couldn't have imagined and helped me find a renewed sense of being. Gina's intuitive ability and flexible approach have enabled me to explore areas I didn't think were possible. The process of change is immediate and dynamic and the benefits have extended into my personal and business life.

Job Titles:

• Director at ARM Research

Melanie has been a professional singer/songwriter, recording artist, Band member, and touring musician for twenty years. For the last ten years she has been teaching singing while being engaged in an extensive, experiential research into the connections between vocal expression, movement and psychotherapeutic process. She trained in Voice Movement Therapy in 1993 and assisted on subsequent trainings. As well as practising as a certificated Body Psychotherapist she now teaches singing to large groups, works with individuals from home and leads therapeutically based voice workshops around the country. She teaches voice and movement with The National Youth Theatre and The Circus Space and is currently running a twice-weekly singing class at The Hornimans Museum in London. She has been a guest teacher on both the American VMT trainings and the VMT training in South Africa on which she is the current senior supervisor.

Job Titles:

• Director Cheadle Thompson & Haysom Inc. Attorneys

"There are many teachers in life, but few great ones. Great teachers do not only know their field, they embody their knowledge. They know when to be assertive and when to be kind. They love what they do and make their students love their field. They are highly in tune with their student's feelings and needs without being intrusive or manipulative. Their advice comes from a deep intuition, not from their heads. They know when to push students to take risks, but also when to protect them. At the end of a session or class, students feel that they had connected with a deeper side of their real selves. And they feel freer. Gina is one of these teachers."

Job Titles:

• Medical Doctor, Actor, Writer and Author of a Happy Human Brain