Toxic Audio (known as Vox Audio outside the Orlando area) is a five-person a cappella singing group from Orlando, Florida. They began with appearances at the Orlando International Fringe Festival in the late 1990s. Frequent appearances at the Jazz Club in Pleasure Island at

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have increased their fame. They have released several CDs and performed live, including a run off Broadway in 2004 and tours in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

and Japan. They have also performed at The Loft, in

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. Toxic Audio is popular for their dynamic and humorous performances, which often include audience participation. They are also adept at improvisation. They emphasize that all of the music and sound effects created in their performances are done entirely with their voices; no outside instruments are used. Five Toxic Audio albums have been released on CD with the addition of their new CD, ''Voice Activated'' in May 2012. The group consists of five primary singers: *Michelle Mailhot-Valines, soprano. Her specialty is

scat singing In vocal jazz, scat singing is vocal improvisation with wordless vocables, nonsense syllables or without words at all. In scat singing, the singer improvises melodies and rhythms using the voice as an instrument rather than a speaking medium. ...

. *Shalisa James, alto. Her specialty is in knowing the exact lyrics to a vast number of songs. *Paul Sperrazza,

tenor A tenor is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The low extreme for tenors is wide ...

. He does

beatboxing Beatboxing (also beat boxing) is a form of vocal percussion primarily involving the art of mimicking drum machines (typically a TR-808), using one's mouth, lips, tongue, and voice.

and is known as the "human beat box" who imitates

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...

. *Jeremy James, baritone. He is skilled at rapping. *René Ruiz, bass, the founder and original director of the group. Other singers have been substituted on rare occasion. John Valines III is the group's technical director and audio engineer. The group's New York show, ''Loud Mouth'', earned them the 2004 Drama Desk Award. As of September 2005 the group performed at the

Luxor Hotel Luxor Las Vegas is a 30-story casino hotel situated on the southern end of the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada. The hotel is owned by Vici Properties and operated by MGM Resorts International and has a casino with over 2,000 slot machines an ...

Las Vegas, NV Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

. Toxic Audio performed the song "Electric Blues" at the Hair Actor's Benefit Fund Concert in NYC

Critical notices

Writing in the ''New York Times'', Lawrence Van Gelder complimented and criticised the group:

"The voices of the five versatile and appealing singers are aided and abetted by an assortment of microphones as they work way through numbers like ''Autumn Leaves,'' ''Dream a Little Dream,'' ''Paperback Writer,'' ''Thriller,'' ''Lean on Me'' and television theme songs. The selection is sure-fire, the presentation is frequently clever, and the cast is talented. But at bottom ''Toxic Audio in Loudmouth'' is the musical equivalent of a one-joke comedy."

External links

VOXAudioGroup.com

References

{{Authority control Professional a cappella groups