Carol Rosenberger

Biography

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Rosenberger studied in the U.S. with Webster Aitken and Katja Andy; in Paris with the legendary Nadia Boulanger; and in Vienna with harpsichordist/ Baroque scholar Eta Harich-Schneider and Schenker theorist Franz Eibner. She has been the subject of articles in many of the nation’s leading newspapers and magazines, and in 1976 was chosen to represent America’s women concert artists by the President’s National Commission on the Observance of International Women’s Year. She has been on the faculties of the University of Southern California, California State University Northridge and Immaculate Heart College. She has given performance workshops for young musicians on campuses nationwide.

Rosenberger has given numerous benefit performances for physical rehabilitation programs, an effort motivated by her own experience. Her official debut was delayed ten years by an attack of paralytic polio at the outset of her career. The disease damaged most severely the very muscles needed for piano playing. Rosenberger spent those ten years of seclusion and rehabilitation partly in Vienna, studying Baroque style and theory at the Academy, and absorbing German lieder, opera, instrumental music and literature. Rosenberger is currently working on a book about her experiences.

Between the late 1960s and the early 1980s, Rosenberger was a member of the piano faculties of the University of Southern California, Immaculate Heart College, and California State University, Northridge. At USC she taught a workshop for instrumentalists and vocalists entitled "Preparation for Performance," which drew upon the techniques she had developed to rehabilitate her own playing from the after-effects of paralytic polio. On her concert tours throughout the U.S., she often included piano workshops while performing at universities.

After making a number of recordings for Delos, Rosenberger became interested in classical recording production, and began co-producing recordings with Delos founder Amelia Haygood. The Delos Recordings for Young People series was a result of this partnership.

Since the death of Delos founder Amelia Haygood in 2007, Rosenberger has taken on a larger responsibility for the label, and is now its director.

Concert history

Rosenberger's debut tour in 1970 received enthusiastic reviews from cities like New York, Boston, London, Paris, Vienna, Berlin and other capitals. Rosenberger's recital programs and guest appearances with orchestras have carried her to most major European and American cities. She has been guest soloist with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo, Moscow Chamber Orchestra, New York Chamber Symphony, National Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, Houston Symphony, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra; performing with conductors Gerard Schwarz, James DePreist, Constantine Orbelian, Neville Marriner, Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos, Izler Solomon, among others

Recording history

Over 30 recordings on the Delos label encompassed a wide range of piano repertoire. Her recording of Howard Hanson’s Fantasy Variations on a Theme of Youth, with Gerard Schwarz and the New York Chamber Symphony brought her a 1991 Grammy Nomination for Best Performance, Soloist with Orchestra. Rosenberger and Schwarz followed this recording with the rarely heard Hanson Piano Concerto with the Seattle Symphony. Together with Constantine Orbelian and the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Rosenberger has recorded the premiere of Frank Bridge’s Chamber Concerto for Piano and String Orchestra (arr. C. Orbelian), an arrangement of the Quintet (1912).

Rosenberger’s celebrated series of concept-recordings began with Water Music of the Impressionists, which was selected by Stereo Review as one of the 25 Best Classical Compact Discs of all time, by Gramophone as a Recording of the Year, and by Billboard as an All-time Great Recording. The Impressionistic Night Moods was the successful sequel, and a second water-music disc, Singing on the Water, included Barcarolles written especially for the album by Sir Richard Rodney Bennett and American composer David Diamond.

Together with label founder and co-producer Amelia Haygood, Rosenberger led the way into another area of concept recordings with the 1989 release of her Perchance to Dream, Lullabys for Children and Adults, which was one of the first classical CDs designed primarily for young people.

Together with Amelia, Rosenberger co-produced the Music for Young People Series. As producer of special recording projects combining music and narration, Rosenberger has worked with such narrators as James Earl Jones, Michael York and Natalia Makarova. She also wrote the script for Makarova's narrated version of Stravinsky’s The Firebird, a recording that won the American Library Association’s “Notable Recording” award.

Discography

Rosenberger's recordings (All on Delos)

Concerto solo with orchestra

Piano solo

Chamber music recordings

Recordings for young people