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Before Madonna sang about her virginity, when making a phone call from the road meant plunking twenty five cents into a phone booth, before Michael Jackson's first plastic surgery and back when getting "on-line" meant waiting to check-out at the grocery store, Peter K. O'Connell was (and still very much is) a professional voice-over talent.
As America's friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent, Peter's amazingly versatile vocal talent allows him to share many voice acting styles with his clients, who range from Fortune 500 Companies to companies who think $500 is a fortune. From his conversational everyman voice to his hard sell straight announcer performances, Peter's natural voice over abilities are favored by clients for commercials, narrations, e-learning, documentary, TV promo, radio imaging and live announcing.
A natural born storyteller and an award-winning voice talent, some of Peter's professional voice-over credits include productions for General Electric, Kraft Foods, PBS (Public Broadcasting Service), Shell Oil, Pitney Bowes, U.S. Army, Starz Cable Channel, Bacardi, SunSetter Awnings, Deloitte, Time Warner Cable, American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), New Jersey Tourism, First Financial Bank, N.A., Western Union, BlueCross Blue Shield, Darien Lake Theme Park, J. Walter Thompson Advertising, Cleveland Browns of the National Football League, Harlequin Enterprises and Pathmark Supermarkets.
Peter K. O'Connell's voice-over recordings have been heard globally including London, England; Seoul, Korea; the Caribbean; Sydney, Australia; Toronto, Canada; Delhi, India and Buenos Aires, Argentina. Nationally across the United States, Peter's voice has been heard in all major markets including but not limited to New York City; Los Angeles, California; Chicago, Illinois, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Dallas, Texas; Dayton, Ohio and Buffalo, New York.
OK you're right, if you're scoring at home, Dayton, Ohio and Buffalo, New York aren't really major markets but he has spent so much time there, Peter felt they deserved a shout-out. A native of Buffalo, NY, Peter grew up in the Nickel City and still lives there today - he even worked in radio there at WLVL, for, like a week. He truly developed his broadcasting and voice-over skills in Dayton at WVUD-FM as a top rated disc jockey and then as a commercial producer for the station.
Peter produces his voice projects through his audio production company, audio'connell Voice Over Talent which is a division of O'Connell Communications, LLC. In addition to Peter's voice over work, which represents a majority of the company's production schedule, audio'connell also provides casting services for clients looking for professional female voiceover and audio production services for national and international clients. The voice over needs of foreign language clients are served through another O'Connell-owned company, International Voice Talents.
Peter has also written an e-book entitled The Voice Over Entrance Exam. The book examines the business and performance realities of becoming a voice-over talent and maintaining a career among a spirited field of established voiceover professionals. Sometimes, when he's feeling very "authory", Peter wears an ascot around his house - it's very obnoxious.
After years of giving away his hard earned knowledge about everything voice over, Peter decided he should be getting PAID for it so he started audio'connell's Voice Over Workshop. In private one-on-one voiceover sessions in his studio or via Skype, Peter teaches new and experienced voice talents what he's learned after nearly 30 years in the voice over business and critical stuff voice actors need to know to get paid voice jobs.
He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Radio and Television Communication from the University of Dayton (OH) - no one is quite sure how - nonetheless the official diploma can be found somewhere in his Buffalo, NY home where he lives with his wife and children.
Thank you for reading all the way to this point in Peter's biography but now you really need to get away from the screen and go do something more productive - even basketweaving would have been a better use of your time that reading all this, but thanks anyway.
For more information about this and other episodes, head over to mikelenzvoice.com.