Roger Rossi

Last updated

Roger Rossi (born 1940) is an American pianist, accompanist, vocalist, bandleader, published author and composer born Roger Rossitto, in Brooklyn, New York. He is the son of concert violinist Vincent Rossitto, who graduated from the Royal Conservatory of Bellini in Palermo, Sicily and performed on many of the great stages of Italy including Teatro Massimo.

Contents

Musician

Rossi attended Amityville Memorial High School in Amityville, New York and was elected "Class Musician". He first studied piano under Mary Findley Ades of Brightwaters, New York and later under James Ball, Professor of Piano Studies at Crane School of Music in Potsdam, New York.

For years Rossi was piano accompanist and music director for Canadian recording artist Tommy Desmond, and later for Columbia Records artist Gene Stridel. He was on staff for Ultrasonic Recording Studios in New York where he played on several hit recordings including The Shangri-Las No. 1 Billboard hit “Leader of the Pack”.

Throughout his 50-plus years as a musician, he's performed a wide variety of music throughout Canada, New York, and New England. In Florida he was the bandleader in the main dining room of the 5-star Boca Raton Hotel & Club for almost 4 years; and Resident Pianist at St. Paul of the Cross Catholic Church, Singer Island for 15 years.

Roger Rossi is a Past President of Rotary International Club of Wellington, Florida where he received the Spirit of Rotary Award and Paul Harris Fellowship.

Author

In 2000, Roger Rossi authored From The Piano Bench: Memorable Moments With Mobsters, Moguls, Movie Stars and More. [1] The book contains 70 very interesting short stories about his encounters with many famous and notorious people throughout his music career, including: Liberace, John F. Kennedy, Jr., Princess Diana, Perry Como, Tony Bennett, Vic Damone, Johnny Mathis, Joe Louis, Rocky Graziano, Rodney Dangerfield, Jack Nicklaus, Itzhak Perlman, Evel Knievel, and Shelley Winters.

Composer

In 2005, Roger Rossi composed his version of Ave Maria [2] after it came to him in a dream. The piece follows the same concept as many other Ave Marias in that it's a Latin translation of the Hail Mary prayer calling for the intercession of Mary, the mother of Jesus. However, Rossi's version differs from most others because it includes additional lyrics to that prayer's text. In a world greatly troubled with wars, terrorism, immorality, greed and selfishness, Rossi felt compelled to ask for divine guidance. His addendum states, “Sancta Maria, beata et casta, ora pro nobis; adiuva nos; egemus tua caritate.” In English it means: “Holy Mary, blessed and pure, pray for us; help us; we need your love.

In 2007, the Vero Beach Choral Society performed Hawley Ades’ choral arrangement of Rossi's Ave Maria, with Dr. Marcos D. Flores conducting what was billed The World Premiere. In 2008, soprano Melissa Rowell recorded on YouTube Charles Calello's symphonic orchestration of Rossi's Ave Maria. [3] In 2009, internationally acclaimed operatic soprano Susan Neves sang Rossi's Ave Maria with the composer (Rossi) at the piano in a performance presented by the Vero Beach Opera on YouTube.

Family

Married: to Sylvia Ann Lacey a/k/a Sal from 1960 to present
Children: Bonny West, Roger Rossitto, Lisa Vinson
Grandchildren: Bradley West, Jesslee, Katrina Colletti, Camryn West, Andrea Colletti, Tori Auer

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Big band</span> Music ensemble associated with jazz music

A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s and dominated jazz in the early 1940s when swing was most popular. The term "big band" is also used to describe a genre of music, although this was not the only style of music played by big bands.

"Ave verum corpus" is a short Eucharistic chant that has been set to music by many composers. It dates to the 13th century, first recorded in a central Italian Franciscan manuscript. A Reichenau manuscript of the 14th century attributes it to Pope Innocent

Kentaro Sato, aka Ken-P, is a composer/conductor/orchestrator/clinician of media music (Film/TV/Game) and concert music. His works have been broadcast, performed, and recorded in North and South America, Asia, and Europe by well-known groups including the London Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra and Sydney Symphony Orchestra. In 2005, he was appointed a resident composer/assistant conductor of the Torrance Symphony. He is also a frequent guest conductor and lecturer for various workshops and reading sessions on choral music and composition/orchestration around the world.

Roger Vignoles, is a British pianist and accompanist. He regularly performs with the world's leading singers, including Kiri Te Kanawa, Thomas Allen, Anne Sofie von Otter, Thomas Hampson, Gitta-Maria Sjöberg, Sarah Walker, Sylvia McNair, Susan Graham, Christine Brewer, Felicity Lott, Stephan Genz, Monica Groop, Wolfgang Holzmair, Bernarda Fink, Christine Schäfer, Brigitte Fassbaender and Kathleen Battle. He also accompanies instrumentalists such as Joshua Bell, Heinrich Schiff, Nobuko Imai and Ralph Kirshbaum, and gives masterclasses around the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pedro Vilarroig</span> Musical artist

Pedro Vilarroig is a professor of physics and cosmology at the Universidad Politécnica of Madrid and a former Spanish composer. He is a proponent of neotonalism, having founded and led the Asociación Española de Compositores Neotonales.

Roger Roger was a French composer of light orchestral music and film scores, as well as a conductor and bandleader. His aliases included Eric Swan and Cecil Leuter, the last being a pseudonym he used for his electronic music productions, of which he was somewhat of a pioneer. He is best known for his intricately composed and arranged orchestral contributions to commercial production music during the 1950s and 1960s, many of which have more recently achieved wider recognition. He helped revive the musical exotica genre with his album Jungle Obsession in 1971.

Johanna Magdalena Beyer was a German-American composer and pianist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Mealor</span> Welsh composer

Paul Mealor CStJ CLJ OSS FRSA is a Welsh composer. A large proportion of his output is for chorus, both a cappella and accompanied. He came to wider notice when his motet Ubi Caritas et Amor was performed at the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton in 2011. He later composed the song "Wherever You Are", which became the 2011 Christmas number one in the UK Singles Chart. He has also composed two operas, four symphonies, concerti and chamber music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrzej Kurylewicz</span> Polish composer and musician

Andrzej Roman Kurylewicz, was a Polish composer, pianist, trombonist, trumpet player and conductor. His works range from serious music, including both chamber and orchestral music, to theatrical, film, ballet, and jazz. He was shaped in the tradition of classical music and pioneered Polish jazz, pursuing a parallel career. He gained nationwide popularity by writing music for Janusz Morgenstern's 1976 TV series Polskie drogi.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elinor Remick Warren</span> American composer, pianist

Elinor Remick Warren was an American composer of contemporary classical music and pianist. Her mother had been a student of a pupil of Franz Liszt, and introduced her daughter to art music. Warren's father was considered a fine amateur singer who had once considered singing professionally. Warren trained as a pianist with Kathryn Cocke through high school and took composition lessons from Gertrude Ross starting her second year in high school. She sent an early composition to the Schirmer music publishing company and received her first contract to publish with them before she graduated from high school. Between high school and college, Warren studied piano with Harold Bauer and Leopold Godowsky. After attending Mills College for a year, she moved to New York, where she studied privately with composers Frank La Forge and Clarence Dickinson, both of whom were known for their art songs. Warren supported herself as an accompanist for singers and went on tour with contralto Margaret Matzenauer.

Hawley Ades was an American choral arranger, born in Wichita, Kansas on June 25, 1908. He died March 26, 2008, at the age of 99, three months shy of his 100th birthday. He was the son of two professional musicians; choral director Lucius Ades, and concert pianist and teacher Mary Findley Ades.

Raymond Beegle is an American piano accompanist and vocal chamber musician.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Teresa Procaccini</span> Italian composer and music educator

Teresa Procaccini is an Italian composer and music educator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Viktor Kosenko</span> Ukrainian composer, pianist, and educator (1896–1938)

Viktor Stepanovych Kosenko was a Ukrainian composer, pianist, and educator. He was regarded by his contemporaries as a master of lyricism. His first compositions were markedly influenced by the works of composers such as Alexander Scriabin, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Sergei Rachmaninoff, and his compatriot Mykola Lysenko.

Aivars Kalējs is a Latvian composer, organist and pianist.

Women in jazz have contributed throughout the many eras of jazz history, both as performers and as composers, songwriters and bandleaders. While women such as Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald were famous for their jazz singing, women have achieved much less recognition for their contributions as composers, bandleaders and instrumental performers. Other notable jazz women include piano player Lil Hardin Armstrong and jazz songwriters Irene Higginbotham and Dorothy Fields.

Svetozar Saša Kovačević was a Serbian composer, music pedagogue and church organist. He was one of Serbia's best-known contemporary composers.

<i>Ave Maria</i> (Bruckner)

Ave Maria, WAB 6, is a sacred motet by Anton Bruckner, a setting of the Latin prayer Ave Maria. He composed it in Linz in 1861 and scored the short work in F major for seven unaccompanied voices. The piece, sometimes named an Offertorium, was published in Vienna in 1867. Before, Bruckner composed the same prayer in 1856 for soprano, alto, a four-part mixed choir, organ and cello, WAB 5. Later, he set the text in 1882 for a solo voice (alto) and keyboard, WAB 7.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Melissa VanFleet</span> American singer-songwriter

Melissa Ann VanFleet is an American singer-songwriter and musician from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. In 2012, her piano covers of American heavy metal band W.A.S.P.'s ballad "Sleeping " and "Too Late" by Black Sabbath garnered attention from the heavy metal music community. Since then, VanFleet has collaborated with a variety of musicians, including Scott Rockenfield of Queensrÿche, Nick Douglas of DORO, Doug Blair of W.A.S.P., Italian symphonic death metal band Genus Ordinis Dei, and Cristina Scabbia of Lacuna Coil.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ave Maria (Biebl)</span> Choral composition by Franz Biebl

Ave Maria by Franz Biebl is a motet composed for double choir, a large four-part choir and a three-part choir which can be performed by soloists. It is a setting of part of the Latin liturgical Angelus prayer, which contains the Ave Maria as a refrain. The composition was originally written for men's chorus, but the composer wrote arrangements for mixed choir and women's choir. The work and arrangements were published by Wildt's Musikverlag, first in 1964. The piece first became famous when a U.S. group, the Cornell University Glee Club, included it in their Christmas programs, and more famous when the Chanticleer ensemble made it part of their regular repertoire. It was published in the U.S. by Hinshaw and became one of the publisher's best-selling items.

References

  1. Rossi, Roger (2000). From the Piano Bench: Memorable Moments With Mobsters, Moguls, Movie Stars, and More. Aslan Publishing. ISBN   978-0-944031-87-2.
  2. "From being thrown out of kindergarten to composing 'Ave Maria'" . Brooklyn Eagle. Retrieved 2023-09-02.
  3. "Roger Rossi's Ave Maria sung by Melissa Rowell with symphonic accompaniment by Charles Calello". NME Magazine Online. 2008.[ permanent dead link ]