Cara Transtrom's

LaVoce Studios

LaVoce Studios

Well, hello, there! Thanks so much for coming by and joining the conversation!

Do you love to talk about theatre? Is it an otherworldly experience when you’re singing en masse with a crowd of 1000 people? Does geeking out about the latest findings in voice science thrill your soul? Do you live for the chance to be on stage? Is it impossible for you to even imagine surviving without these experiences?

Then you’ve found your tribe—your people—-here at LaVoce Studios! Feel free to pull up a chair (or stand on the bouncing ball) and let’s chat some more. We’d love to get to know you better!

We at LaVoce Studios love to talk about VOICE!

And by “voice,” we mean:

  • singing
  • performing
  • auditions
  • theatre training
  • dance opportunities
  • choirs
  • vocal technique (skills, tips, & exercises to grow & improve every voice)
  • oh, any genre of music out there
  • songwriting
  • college music & theatre programs
  • summer intensives
  • voice & fine-arts competitions
  • vocal science
  • poetry
  • spoken-word performances
  • school shows
  • community theatre
  • Broadway shows
  • regional theatre opportunities
  • music festivals
  • operas both new & vintage
  • your first gigs (both paid & unpaid)
  • planning for all different kinds of futures in the arts!

 

About LaVoce Studios

LaVoce performers are heard in lead, supporting, and ensemble roles in high-school & middle-school musicals, community theatre, national Broadway workshops, camps, elementary-school productions, & other venues.

LaVoce singers place in state, regional, and national voice competitions and have been featured as soloists in many greater-DC-based venues. The studios’ high-school students are also frequent CAPPIES nominees in the greater Washington, DC region.

Former students have gone on to schools such as Shenandoah University, Berklee College of Music, Eastman School of Music, Coastal Carolina, Virginia Tech, Harvard, Chicago’s Northwestern, and Rider University, among others.

As founder & director of LaVoce Studios, one of Cara’s favorite things is to help people find and grow their voices! A singer, voice teacher, actor, and business owner with studios in both northern Virginia and DC, she has performed in a wide variety of styles and in many of the area’s most elite music venues. She has specifically trained and/or performed in the following genres: unamplified voice (opera & classical), music theatre, pop, rock, sacred, country, and folk.

Every year Cara attends and/or presents at continuing-education training opportunities from some of the finest specialists in the global voice field so she can keep offering LaVoce performers the most up-to-date training available in voice & theatre instruction and performance. (You can find a partial list of the continuing-ed events, trainings, and workshops she’s recently attended here.)

Cara is also the co-founder of SingDC, a local music-theatre training vehicle for pre-professional teens.

Past Special Events

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LaVoce Studios in Northern Virginia & Washington DC

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Vocal Competitions

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Performance Opportunities

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All Ages Accepted

Studio Highlights

It has been an extraordinary year in 2016-2017: over 50 students were a part of LaVoce Studios this past year in 3 different locations: Annandale (home studio), Springfield’s Music & Arts, and Episcopal High School.

Here is a small sampling of the good work that happened this year:

  • Twenty-three students participated in recording videos in January for the national Hal Leonard online vocal opportunity; this is the highest participation rate we’ve ever experienced. And if this wasn’t already enough, HL chose one national second-place winner and three national finalists from LaVoce Studios this year! Congratulations again to all!
  • Five students participated in the first-ever Northern Virginia Music Teachers Association’s Judged Recital in teen music theatre in Arlington, VA in November. Not only did all the students perform beautifully, but 2 LaVoce students were named among the 5 winners overall—fantastic job, everyone!
  • Sixteen students participated in the Springfield-based National Federation of Music Clubs’ Spring Music Festival this past March. This was also a first for LaVoce Studios, and once again the students blew us all away; not a single student received lower than a superior or excellent rating, and in fact, many students received double superiors. (I was so proud of them all I could hardly hold it together.)
  • Thirteen students participated in the state (Virginia) National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) student auditions last February, and 5 students qualified to go on to the Regional level. (One second- place winner and four Honors designations at state—way to go to all of you!)
  • Four students chose to go on to the multi-state Regional NATS in Chapel Hill, NC, in March; one student won first in category and first in her sing-off competition immediately following. As this qualified her for the final round of YouTube-only competition to compete for a chance to sing at Nationals, she submitted her videos and was selected—for the 2nd year in a row—as one of only 14 high-school females in the nation to compete at the NATS national music theatre student auditions in Boulder, CO, this last July. Congratulations for the second time!
  • Our first-ever Duets Performance recital—performed for the residents of Sunrise Retirement Home in Springfield, VA in May—was a smashing success! Students from multiple LaVoce studio locations loved the opportunity to meet each other and entertain the audience together. We will definitely be having a reprise of this event this upcoming year.

And the residents of the Hermitage in Alexandria enjoyed our annual December 2016 holiday service outreach performance—kudos to all!

  • In addition to all of the above, there were loads of LaVoce Studios students who performed ensemble, supporting, and leading roles in their respective school musicals AND in various community-theatre and church-theatre opportunities! There were students who performed in choirs this past year that featured world premieres of new music, students who led or participated in their churches’ music choirs & bands, and students who took up new instruments just for fun! There were school competition trips to Disneyworld (where students swept the awards), overseas performance opportunities —it was dizzying! At one point this summer our studio had 5 current or former students featured in 3 different musicals or performance venues during the same weekend locally—uff da! (I love having these kinds of scheduling challenges, by the way—bring it on!)
  • For perspective, the LaVoce Studios students hail from more than 20 different school settings and range in age from 8 years young to seasoned senior citizens.
  • Students took amazing risks this past year in their performance choices, and we saw unprecedented growth happening in students all across the board—it was so thrilling to be a part of this! This concludes our “quick highlights reel” of an incredibly packed, wonderful, and amazing year for LaVoce Studios. Sometimes I still say to my husband, after a particularly stunning performance or lesson, “I work with such extraordinarily-talented kids!” My jaw still drops at what all of these students can accomplish and at the inspiring young artists they continue to become.

To see the singers in action, please enjoy this YouTube channel of 23 different vocalists of all ages singing 2 songs each—-in a wide variety of styles—-for an event this past January:

Services & Policies

Frustrated with DC traffic? Last-minute scheduling change at work means that no one can drive your child to their lesson? Not a problem—-online individual & group lessons are available at no extra charge. Students can choose to take their weekly lesson online (live) for any lesson slots that they wish.

Are you struggling to juggle a hectic, ever-changing kaleidoscope of family scheduling needs? Students & parents are free to cancel & reschedule their lessons whenever needed with no cancelation fees. A student or guardian simply logs into the online master calendar with 24/7 access, cancels their lesson (freeing the slot for someone else who is also looking for a necessary switch), and picks up any other open slot that works with their schedule.

LaVoce Studios offers several membership packages to cover the needs of teens, adults, and children! New for 2019: packages with unlimited lessons and unlimited lesson lengths! The online lesson calendar is separated into 25-minute segments, and students & families stack segments to obtain any length of lesson they need: 50 minutes, 75 minutes, or even 25 minutes.

Everything You Need to Discover Your Voice!

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