Over 40 years ago, the BVA was founded by an interdisciplinary group of colleagues and friends united in their fascination with voice and a desire to share knowledge and expertise. One of them was the distinguished voice scientist, academic and BVA Fellow, Adrian Fourcin, who sadly died in April.

Professor Fourcin was Head of the Phonetics/Speech Sciences Laboratory at University College (UCL), London from 1961 to 1992, and then Professor Emeritus of Experimental Phonetics. During a long, diverse and extraordinarily productive career, he contributed to greatly improved cochlear implants for the deaf. His best known (and game-changing) work was with the voice. In the 1960s he developed the electrolaryngograph which enabled the precise measurement of vocal fold contact. This remains an invaluable tool, worldwide, in acoustic research, speech forensics and vocal rehabilitation.

Professor Fourcin has left a legacy of over 130 publications addressing an extensive range of topics from the assessment of voice quality, central neuro-temporal pitch processing, stridor in Parkinson’s disease sufferers to Chinese- speaking amusia sufferers and, in 2024, “Congruent timing in Human, Nightingale, Parotid Wasp and Hawaiian Planthopper vocalisations”.

These few examples exemplify the commitment, creativity and interdisciplinary principles that have underlain Professor Fourcin’s work. The BVA has lost an inspirational founder and Fellow whose spirit of collaboration continues to flourish in the organization today.