Pianist and singer Louise Rose is likely well-known to anyone who has attended a music performance at the Edgewater Hall in the past, but for those who haven’t heard of her before, she promises a truly one-of-a kind experience.
“I really don’t have a show,” Rose said. “There are only ideas, thoughts and feelings I want to share with those who have honoured me with an invitation to spend some time in their midst.”
On Sunday, May 20 at 2 p.m., Rose makes a return to the hall she helped open 16 years ago. Rose, who writes and performs all completely original music, said she “declared” to her family in 1948 that she wanted to be a piano player and singer when she was four years old. By the age of eight, she was conducting her grandfather’s church choir and went on to receive a bachelor of music education from Temple University. Rose then continued her studies at the Harvard School of Divinity and was later ordained as a Baptist minister.
“Music, for me, is the metaphor for life… it explains the inexplicable,” Rose said. “Singing in a choir is one of the most wholesome team sports in the world in that everyone on the team contributes to the outcome, and, no matter what the outcome, everyone wins.”
Not one to be tied down to one profession, Rose also worked with committees on anti-racism as the years went on and has served as Victoria’s special ambassador for the United Nation’s Children’s Education Fund. At various other times, she has also been a police officer and a sociology teacher. Her music is described as a mix of jazz, blues and gospel, and she has studied and worked with such names as Aretha Franklin, Oscar Peterson, Ray Charles and Leonard Bernstein.
“They call her a force of nature,” said Barry Moore, of the Columbia Valley Music and Festivals Association. “She’s got this tremendous voice, and passion for life… I just like the strength of her voice, she’s very emphatic and emotive when she sings.”
Moore has been in part responsible for putting together many of the Edgewater concerts over the years and with the recent news that the grand piano in the hall would be moving to Christ Church Trinity in Invermere, this is likely one of the last shows the Edgewater Community Hall will be able to put on in the foreseeable future.
“My perception of what I do is anything but a performance,” Rose said. “What I do is share what is personal and meaningful to me, with the belief that what is personal and meaningful to me is mutual on some level.”
Tickets are $25 for adults, $10 for students and $5 for children, and are available at the door or by calling Barry Moore at (250) 347-9668 or Anne Jardine at (250) 347-9860.
