New Vocal Artist-In-Residence Susan Hegarty recently visited the LA Music Academy on December 12th, 2008. Susan, who is known as one of Hollywood's top dialect coaches, worked with vocal students and staff and taught in-depth information relating to accent reduction, enunciation, and the ins and outs of language and voice production. She has a wealth of experience in these areas, working with Kate Winslet, whom she coached on three Oscar-nominated performances (Titanic, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Little Children); Rachel Weisz (My Blueberry Nights, The Fountain, The Brothers Bloom, Definitely Maybe and The Lovely Bones); Penelope Cruz, Eric Bana, Claire Danes, Sir Ben Kingsley, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Ralph Fiennes, Kate Hudson, Rachel Griffiths, Ioan Gruffudd, Gabriel Byrne, Jon Voight, Barbara Hershey, Julianne Moore, and many others.

Susan's first visit was a huge success as noted by Vocal Department Chair Tierney Sutton: "I think everyone who attended was pretty blown away by her level of knowledge and skill. I even had teachers who were there tell me they immediately starting using things they'd learned from her."