Victoria Vox
Encyclopedia
Victoria Davitt better known by stage name Victoria Vox, is a singer, songwriter
and musician
specializing in the ukulele
. Originally a native of Green Bay, Wisconsin
, Vox now resides in Maryland
when not on tour.
The Baltimore Sun
notes her influences as including The Cranberries
, Madonna
, Cyndi Lauper
, Patty Griffin
, Sting, and Peter Gabriel
.
, living with a French family and becoming fluent in the French language
. She began playing the guitar
at age 17, a year before entering the Berklee College of Music
in Boston, Massachusetts. While at Berklee, she recorded her first record collaboration, performing with a band in Victoria and the Ultra Pink Bicycle Incident. In 2000, she graduated with honors from the Berklee College of Music with a degree in songwriting. After her graduation, she moved briefly to Nashville, Tennessee
. Shortly after, she moved to England
where she released an acoustic record of emotional material entitled Still. After moving back to Green Bay in 2003, she committed herself to a career as a professional musician and in 2004 formed a group called Tres Femmes with singer/songwriters Kellie Lin Knott of Minneapolis and Stolie of Chicago
. They released a self-titled acoustic cd and toured nationally. Vox began to add bass
and ukulele to the group’s music and in 2004 she recorded In Between, an acoustic EP that began to experiment with more pop
sounds than her previous work. Following this release, the ukulele became her primary instrument and fans requested an album focusing on the uke. In 2006, she released her first album of ukulele music through Obus Records. The album was entitled Victoria Vox and Her Jumping Flea because "jumping flea" is the literal translation of the Hawaii
an word "ukulele". While on tour in Hawaii in 2006, Vox was offered an endorsement with KoAloha Ukuleles of Honolulu, Hawaii
. Though her professional, performance repertoire contains little traditional Hawaiian ukulele music, with the 2008 release of Chameleon, Vox gained renown for her use of the ukulele with pop music.
Victoria Vox has toured the US, and plays over 125 performance dates annually, including ukulele festivals such as the New York City Ukulele Festival and the Paris Ukulele Festival. She has been featured on NPR, and her song "America" from Jumping Flea was featured on the A&E
show Random 1
.
Vox was the runner-up in the International Acoustic Music Awards for ‘My Darlin’ Beau’ (Jumping Flea), and later won First Place for Chameleon in the same competition. She has been profiled in Relix
magazine’s "On the Verge: 5 Artists You Should Know" section.
In December 2009, Victoria Vox performed mouth trumpet
in the "Meal or No Meal" segment on the Jay Leno Show. After being discovered by producers on youtube.com
, she auditioned over the phone, performing Lady Gaga
’s "Poker Face
". For the Jay Leno Show, Vox performed a cover of Europe’s
"The Final Countdown
" despite her own preference for her original music. Vox was awarded a gift certificate for eight to the Japanese restaurant Benihana
for her performance in the segment, which included a solo performance of the "mouth trumpet" which she produces by singing through slightly parted lips, on the right side of her mouth.
Sony BMG and Austrian
artist Valerie Sajdik
recorded "Noyé" (penned by Victoria Vox) on her 2010 release, Ich Bin Du Bist.
Other recent awards (2010-11) include multiple Washington Area Music Awards
(Wammies) (for Folk - Contemporary Vocalist, Contemporary Album of the Year, and Fan Favorite) and the people's vote for the "Vox Pop" award for Adult Contemporary Album of the Year (Exact Change) in 10th Annual Independent Music Awards . She is also a member of 1% for the Planet
.
Songwriter
A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...
and musician
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
specializing in the ukulele
Ukulele
The ukulele, ; from ; it is a subset of the guitar family of instruments, generally with four nylon or gut strings or four courses of strings....
. Originally a native of Green Bay, Wisconsin
Green Bay, Wisconsin
Green Bay is a city in and the county seat of Brown County in the U.S. state of Wisconsin, located at the head of Green Bay, a sub-basin of Lake Michigan, at the mouth of the Fox River. It has an elevation of above sea level and is located north of Milwaukee. As of the 2010 United States Census,...
, Vox now resides in Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
when not on tour.
The Baltimore Sun
The Baltimore Sun
The Baltimore Sun is the U.S. state of Maryland’s largest general circulation daily newspaper and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries....
notes her influences as including The Cranberries
The Cranberries
The Cranberries are an Irish rock band formed in Limerick in 1989 under the name The Cranberry Saw Us, later changed by vocalist Dolores O'Riordan. The band currently consists of O'Riordan, guitarist Noel Hogan, bassist Mike Hogan and drummer Fergal Lawler...
, Madonna
Madonna (entertainer)
Madonna is an American singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983...
, Cyndi Lauper
Cyndi Lauper
Cynthia Ann Stephanie "Cyndi" Lauper is an American singer, songwriter, actress and LGBT rights activist. She achieved success in the mid-1980s with the release of the album She's So Unusual and became the first female singer to have four top-five singles released from one album...
, Patty Griffin
Patty Griffin
Patty Griffin, born Patricia Jean Griffin, March 16, 1964, is an American Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter and musician. She is especially known for her down-home crafting of songs and her connection to musicians including Emmylou Harris, Ellis Paul, and the Dixie Chicks, who have played with...
, Sting, and Peter Gabriel
Peter Gabriel
Peter Brian Gabriel is an English singer, musician, and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock group Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel went on to a successful solo career...
.
History
At age 16, Vox spent a year living in FranceFrance
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, living with a French family and becoming fluent in the French language
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
. She began playing the guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
at age 17, a year before entering the Berklee College of Music
Berklee College of Music
Berklee College of Music, located in Boston, Massachusetts, is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known primarily as a school for jazz, rock and popular music, it also offers college-level courses in a wide range of contemporary and historic styles, including hip...
in Boston, Massachusetts. While at Berklee, she recorded her first record collaboration, performing with a band in Victoria and the Ultra Pink Bicycle Incident. In 2000, she graduated with honors from the Berklee College of Music with a degree in songwriting. After her graduation, she moved briefly to Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
. Shortly after, she moved to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
where she released an acoustic record of emotional material entitled Still. After moving back to Green Bay in 2003, she committed herself to a career as a professional musician and in 2004 formed a group called Tres Femmes with singer/songwriters Kellie Lin Knott of Minneapolis and Stolie of Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
. They released a self-titled acoustic cd and toured nationally. Vox began to add bass
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
and ukulele to the group’s music and in 2004 she recorded In Between, an acoustic EP that began to experiment with more pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
sounds than her previous work. Following this release, the ukulele became her primary instrument and fans requested an album focusing on the uke. In 2006, she released her first album of ukulele music through Obus Records. The album was entitled Victoria Vox and Her Jumping Flea because "jumping flea" is the literal translation of the Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
an word "ukulele". While on tour in Hawaii in 2006, Vox was offered an endorsement with KoAloha Ukuleles of Honolulu, Hawaii
Honolulu, Hawaii
Honolulu is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Hawaii. Honolulu is the southernmost major U.S. city. Although the name "Honolulu" refers to the urban area on the southeastern shore of the island of Oahu, the city and county government are consolidated as the City and...
. Though her professional, performance repertoire contains little traditional Hawaiian ukulele music, with the 2008 release of Chameleon, Vox gained renown for her use of the ukulele with pop music.
Victoria Vox has toured the US, and plays over 125 performance dates annually, including ukulele festivals such as the New York City Ukulele Festival and the Paris Ukulele Festival. She has been featured on NPR, and her song "America" from Jumping Flea was featured on the A&E
A&E Network
The A&E Network is a United States-based cable and satellite television network with headquarters in New York City and offices in Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, London, Los Angeles and Stamford. A&E also airs in Canada and Latin America. Initially named the Arts & Entertainment Network, A&E launched...
show Random 1
Random 1
Random 1 is a documentary-style reality television series that aired from November 2005 to January 2006 on the A&E cable network. In each episode, hosts John Chester and Andre Miller travel from town to town, in Miller's real-life, rickety pickup truck Jackie, searching for total strangers who are...
.
Vox was the runner-up in the International Acoustic Music Awards for ‘My Darlin’ Beau’ (Jumping Flea), and later won First Place for Chameleon in the same competition. She has been profiled in Relix
Relix
Relix magazine was launched in 1974 as newsletter devoted to connecting people who recorded Grateful Dead concerts. It rapidly expanded into a music magazine covering a wide amount of artists...
magazine’s "On the Verge: 5 Artists You Should Know" section.
In December 2009, Victoria Vox performed mouth trumpet
Mouth trumpet
Mouth trumpet is a vocal technique that imitates the sound of the trumpet.The mouth trumpet sound is produced by using the vocal cords to produce the desired pitch and passing the sound through the lips that are held together with just enough tension so that they vibrate at the same frequency as...
in the "Meal or No Meal" segment on the Jay Leno Show. After being discovered by producers on youtube.com
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
, she auditioned over the phone, performing Lady Gaga
Lady GaGa
Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta , better known by her stage name Lady Gaga, is an American singer and songwriter. Born and raised in New York City, she primarily studied at the Convent of the Sacred Heart and briefly attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts before withdrawing to...
’s "Poker Face
Poker Face (Lady Gaga song)
"Poker Face" is a song by American recording artist Lady Gaga from her debut album, The Fame. Produced by RedOne, it was released as the album's second single in late 2008 for some markets and in early 2009 for the rest of the world...
". For the Jay Leno Show, Vox performed a cover of Europe’s
Europe (band)
Europe is a Swedish rock band formed in Upplands Väsby in 1979 under the name Force by vocalist Joey Tempest, guitarist John Norum and drummer Tony Reno. Although widely associated with glam metal, the band's sound incorporates heavy metal and hard rock elements...
"The Final Countdown
The Final Countdown (song)
"The Final Countdown" is a rock song by the Swedish band Europe released in 1986. Written by Joey Tempest, it was the first single from the band's third studio album which was also named The Final Countdown. It is considered by some to be the band's most recognizable and popular song. The song...
" despite her own preference for her original music. Vox was awarded a gift certificate for eight to the Japanese restaurant Benihana
Benihana
Benihana can refer to:*Benihana, Benihana's Hibachi Restaurant*Benihana * Benihana, the Japanese word for safflower...
for her performance in the segment, which included a solo performance of the "mouth trumpet" which she produces by singing through slightly parted lips, on the right side of her mouth.
Sony BMG and Austrian
Austrians
Austrians are a nation and ethnic group, consisting of the population of the Republic of Austria and its historical predecessor states who share a common Austrian culture and Austrian descent....
artist Valerie Sajdik
Valérie Sajdik
Valérie Sajdik is an Austrian pop singer.Valerie Sajdik became famous through lead singing in her band Saint Privat, which was very successful in the mid 2000s. She has since released 2 solo albums and tours internationally. She splits her time between living in Austria and France, and is...
recorded "Noyé" (penned by Victoria Vox) on her 2010 release, Ich Bin Du Bist.
Other recent awards (2010-11) include multiple Washington Area Music Awards
Washington Area Music Awards
The Washington Area Music Awards are a music award for Washington, D.C. area performers, issued by the Washington Area Music Association . The awards are issued at an annual awards program....
(Wammies) (for Folk - Contemporary Vocalist, Contemporary Album of the Year, and Fan Favorite) and the people's vote for the "Vox Pop" award for Adult Contemporary Album of the Year (Exact Change) in 10th Annual Independent Music Awards . She is also a member of 1% for the Planet
One Percent for the Planet
One Percent for the Planet is an international organization whose members contribute at least one percent of their annual sales to environmental causes. Their mission is to "use market forces to drive positive environmental change by inspiring companies to give"...
.
Discography
- 1999: Ultra Pink Bicycle Incident
- 2003: Still
- 2004: Tres Femmes
- 2004: In Between (EP)
- 2006: Victoria Vox and Her Jumping Flea
- 2008: Chameleon
- 2008: Holiday Card (EP)
- 2009: Square Pegs, Round Holes Compilation
- 2010: Exact Change
- 2011: Vox Ukulele Cello
External links
- Victoria Vox official site