A beautiful child is enchanting. They possess the promise of the future. They embody the beauty of humanity. They let us know in a moment's notice that for them, all things are possible. For Jessica Holtan, the power of her beautiful, natural-sounding voice became her reality. But she wasn't thinking about a life in voiceover, even though the use of the voice was how her father provided for the family.
Born to the parents of radio station property owners, Jessica was around the broadcasting business from childhood, yet "that was my parents' thing - not mine, but it did help me develop my personality and work ethic." Jessica tells me. "So, radio is not my background." Jessica was interested in acting. The world of stage performing. Musical theatre.
Jessica acting on stage.
And as you'll read, she did become an actor, but part of her creative professional journey is acting with her voice.
"Dad's career pushed me into performance by finding theatre as a way to meet people, but I was never in radio."
Radio station ownership is the crème de la crème of the terrestrial radio business. We all know about the disc jockey; we hear the advertising; we recognize the music the station is known for. We know where to find them on the dial. But we otherwise know very little about who owns the station. And that the FCC station signal owner is the elite individual in the industry. It's not who you're hearing that controls anything. It's the ownership and the culture that the ownership stands for. But nowadays, few privately owned radio stations exist, like Jessica's parents Bob and Colleen Holtan. "I did do some imaging for KDEC-FM In Decorah, Iowa, just a few commercials in the beginning, yet I still wasn't thinking radio."
www.jessicaholtan.com
And that might have been a good thought process versus her upbringing. Why? Because of radio deregulation, which allowed a corporation to own more than two stations in a market. An example would be iHeart radio and Clear Channel radio. They bought up all the independent stations around the country, and now what you hear is corporately owned property.
There are other conglomerates as well, but upon the deregulation of radio, big money could buy many stations, hundreds in fact, and that changed the dynamic of what radio life inside the station would be like forever. But when Jessica was growing up, radio was owned by real people, not big companies. This allowed the owners to play what they wanted on the air.
Nowadays, the station you hear on the radio is controlled by people who not only do not live in your city but hold the power to put a new song on the air. So iHeart radio, for example, has (868) stations. Yet, it's generally just a few select people who can green-light a song to be heard. So, a new artist who completely deserves radio airplay may never be heard.
When Jessica was growing up, it was the golden era of radio, and she never considered using just her voice. "But as I got older, I wanted to continue to perform but also find a way to operate out of our home in Nashville." Enter voiceover. It showed up in her life because "all voiceover IS acting," she says. Nowadays, she works for herself. She voices from her home studio. And Jessica has the autonomy to voice or not voice any project she wants. She is not controlled by a corporation because Jessica IS the corporation.
So, just like her parents, Jessica runs her business as she sees fit and has taken the principles her parents once embodied and lives them every day. But "it has nothing to do with broadcasting; it has to do with my voice."
Jessica had it in her DNA to perform and work in the arts in various ways, and she continues. At ten years old, she did "Annie," the musical, so theatre provided the fundamental that singing and acting were not the only forms of acting available. And that was when a good friend of Jessica's showed her how voiceover operates. So, with extensive study and being porous to the world of voiceover, here's the result of a well-trained theatre actor.
Her friendly voice found its way into audiobook narration.
Jessica is very versatile. Here's corporate narration.
And recently, Jessica received The Reeds Award for political campaign voiceover. She embodies a philosophy of her subtext when she approaches any acting situation. "People communicate on "a frequency" and to relate to them, you must connect to their frequency." And that's not "word salad," she speaks. It is true that when you connect to someone, you must do so by relating to them on the frequency they are vibrating to connect to them.
These days, Jessica is a mother of three, in a loving relationship with a musician, living in Tennessee, and raising her children, and her life looks just like the happy family that she was raised in.
But it all started with her parents and the example they set. Meanwhile, Bob and Colleen will celebrate their 58th wedding anniversary in June. The world of professional voice acting fits Jessica's lifestyle perfectly. She can still be an actor on many fronts and live in a fantastic world of creativity. It was all she ever dreamed of.
