Rosśa Crean is a multi-genre recording artist and composer, so don't be afraid of the variety! You can also listen to a lot of Rosśa's work at Soundcloud by clicking here.
Rosśa is always for hire for multimedia and film projects as well. Check out the COMPOSITIONS page to listen to past works!
The Passive-Aggressive's Guide to Mother Goose
A comedic song cycle for Medium Voice (A3-G5) and Piano
Range (C3# - B5) Poetry by W. S. Di Piero Rights and Printing Rights Granted with Kind Permission by W. S. Di Piero
Text by Bea Goodwin. Music by Rosśa Crean. Range (D4 to G5 or 8vb). Duration 6 minutes. Copyright © 2020 Rosśa Crean / Knight & Thorne Music / ASCAP. All Rights Reserved.
Composer’s Notes:
Hello, adventurous singers!
“On the Road” is another collaboration between myself and wordsmith Bea Goodwin. The texts Bea wrote here, like in our previous miniature cycle “Nightingale Songs,” are all little excerpts from her journal. This time, Bea documented her move to beautiful California, where at that time she had never been any further west than Texas. I love her work tremendously; in so few words, she can convey a myriad of emotions, and that is the fun part about my job when I get to translate those emotions to music. The texts may say something initially on the surface, but once you venture further, you start to see some of the hidden meanings and undertones in what is being said here.
The most important thing I want to mention here is that I purposely do not assign strict tempos to these miniatures. When you see a fermata, a ritardando, an accelerando, etc., they are simply guidelines. Feel free to stretch and compress the tempos. Change them whenever you want if you feel it benefits your performance of this cycle. Pause at rests longer if you wish. There is no metronome clicking while you are singing these songs, and you do not need to fear one being turned on while you are practicing them either.
Yes, there are just a couple extended techniques offered here, but you do absolutely do not need to perform them if you are not comfortable or experienced in doing so. I composed this with that in mind. I appreciate different interpretations of song, so please feel free to go with whatever your intuition tells you. The subharmonics cannot be done physically by everyone, so if you cannot figure out how to execute them, do not worry a thing about it. Just have fun!
Hope you enjoy our little mini musical adventure journal!
With Gratitude, Rosśa Crean & Bea Goodwin
Text by Bea Goodwin. Music by Rosśa Crean. Range (B3 to E5 or 8vb). Duration 6 minutes. Copyright © 2020 Rosśa Crean / Knight & Thorne Music / ASCAP. All Rights Reserved.
Composer’s Notes:
Hello, adventurous singers!
“On the Road” is another collaboration between myself and wordsmith Bea Goodwin. The texts Bea wrote here, like in our previous miniature cycle “Nightingale Songs,” are all little excerpts from her journal. This time, Bea documented her move to beautiful California, where at that time she had never been any further west than Texas. I love her work tremendously; in so few words, she can convey a myriad of emotions, and that is the fun part about my job when I get to translate those emotions to music. The texts may say something initially on the surface, but once you venture further, you start to see some of the hidden meanings and undertones in what is being said here.
The most important thing I want to mention here is that I purposely do not assign strict tempos to these miniatures. When you see a fermata, a ritardando, an accelerando, etc., they are simply guidelines. Feel free to stretch and compress the tempos. Change them whenever you want if you feel it benefits your performance of this cycle. Pause at rests longer if you wish. There is no metronome clicking while you are singing these songs, and you do not need to fear one being turned on while you are practicing them either.
Yes, there are just a couple extended techniques offered here, but you do absolutely do not need to perform them if you are not comfortable or experienced in doing so. I composed this with that in mind. I appreciate different interpretations of song, so please feel free to go with whatever your intuition tells you. The subharmonics cannot be done physically by everyone, so if you cannot figure out how to execute them, do not worry a thing about it. Just have fun!
Hope you enjoy our little mini musical adventure journal!
With Gratitude, Rosśa Crean & Bea Goodwin
CAST: The Queen of the Night - Coloratura Soprano Mrs. Darling - Mezzo Soprano Clytemnestra - Contralto
SYNOPSIS:
In “Lost Daughters,” the Queen of the Night, Mrs. Darling, and Clytemnestra reconvening repeatedly to a desolate wasteland, where they return each time someone is done reading their stories. They then discuss the losses of each of their daughters, one by death, one by estrangement, and one by intervalic disappearance. It's also about how these three very different women come together to express their grief and eventually, with the discovery that they relive this story and these feelings on repeat, decide to try and end the cycle.
Nightingale Songs
Music: Rosśa Crean Text: Bea Goodwin
Nightingale songs began as bits of poem pieces extracted from Bea's diaries during the fall of the Kavanaugh hearings. The image of Philomela & birds flew from the page in an attempt to take back control of women's sexuality. The following songs, raw and genuine, are tiny shards of glass from a very broken time. Rosśa used the sentiment of each poem, as well as their own synesthesia, to compose melodic phrases based on the colors they were seeing: hues of rich browns, saffron, periwinkle, violet, and ruby red.
II. lamplight My skirt is a lampshade with a warm glow underneath
III. nightingale We are all Philomela; birds lined to slaughter, with songs we are too scared to sing.
IV. Venus de Milo Venus de Milo, I hold your arms and scotch tape You whisper: "dont fix me."
"Twilight Lifts the Veil" is a song cycle I have been asked repeatedly to compose for singers who have been looking for new music to perform during the Hallowe’en season. I have chosen three early 20th Century female poets whose words have often left me with an evanescent feeling, as if their words went through me and left a mark while floating ephemerally away. As a singer raised in the sean-nós vocal tradition, I have always felt that the naked voice is the most visceral way to reach the divine in any capacity, and I hope that this collection can draw that forward not only in the notes written and sung, but also in the spaces and silence between.
Singers’ Notes:
Perform at the tempi you see fit. I normally suggest anything around 90 bpm for a start, but do not see this as a piece the requires a metronome. Hold rests, stretch notes, accelerate, ritardando, and fermata as much as you would like for your own individual performance. There are no expectations but your own.
In the third song, All Hallows Night, I suggest the singer repeats the final phrase as much as they desire, with thoughts that the performance would end with the singer slowly leaving the performance space as the cycle nears completion, representing the coming and going of the departed as All Hallows Eve arrives and transitions to All Souls Day.
All in all, have fun! I certainly have.
Oíche Shamhna! Rosśa Crean 2018
"Twilight Lifts the Veil" is a song cycle I have been asked repeatedly to compose for singers who have been looking for new music to perform during the Hallowe’en season. I have chosen three early 20th Century female poets whose words have often left me with an evanescent feeling, as if their words went through me and left a mark while floating ephemerally away. As a singer raised in the sean-nós vocal tradition, I have always felt that the naked voice is the most visceral way to reach the divine in any capacity, and I hope that this collection can draw that forward not only in the notes written and sung, but also in the spaces and silence between.
Singers’ Notes:
Perform at the tempi you see fit. I normally suggest anything around 90 bpm for a start, but do not see this as a piece the requires a metronome. Hold rests, stretch notes, accelerate, ritardando, and fermata as much as you would like for your own individual performance. There are no expectations but your own.
In the third song, All Hallows Night, I suggest the singer repeats the final phrase as much as they desire, with thoughts that the performance would end with the singer slowly leaving the performance space as the cycle nears completion, representing the coming and going of the departed as All Hallows Eve arrives and transitions to All Souls Day.
All in all, have fun! I certainly have.
Oíche Shamhna!
Rosśa Crean 2018
"Twilight Lifts the Veil" is a song cycle I have been asked repeatedly to compose for singers who have been looking for new music to perform during the Hallowe’en season. I have chosen three early 20th Century female poets whose words have often left me with an evanescent feeling, as if their words went through me and left a mark while floating ephemerally away. As a singer raised in the sean-nós vocal tradition, I have always felt that the naked voice is the most visceral way to reach the divine in any capacity, and I hope that this collection can draw that forward not only in the notes written and sung, but also in the spaces and silence between.
Singers’ Notes:
Perform at the tempi you see fit. I normally suggest anything around 90 bpm for a start, but do not see this as a piece the requires a metronome. Hold rests, stretch notes, accelerate, ritardando, and fermata as much as you would like for your own individual performance. There are no expectations but your own.
In the third song, All Hallows Night, I suggest the singer repeats the final phrase as much as they desire, with thoughts that the performance would end with the singer slowly leaving the performance space as the cycle nears completion, representing the coming and going of the departed as All Hallows Eve arrives and transitions to All Souls Day.
All in all, have fun! I certainly have.
Oíche Shamhna!
Rosśa Crean 2018
The Harbingers: An Unaccompanied Opera in One Act
Libretto by Kendra Leonard Music by Rosśa Crean Duration: 51 minutes
Written for ten singers, "The Harbingers" takes place on All Hallows Eve, where several different spectres of death convene to decide the fate of a recently-departed soul. The Soul may not be all she portrays herself to be, however, and the result is a struggle between the Harbingers over morality, mercy, and the perceptions of good & evil.
ROLES:
ATROPOS - CONTRALTO AZRAEL - LYRIC SOPRANO CLOTHO - MEZZO COUNTERTENOR/MEZZO SOPRANO DONN - BASS ERLIK - BARITONE HEL - COLORATURA SOPRANO LACHESIS - TENOR THE MORRIGAN - LYRIC SOPRANO SEKHMET - HIGH LYRIC TENOR/ALTO COUNTERTENOR THE SOUL - SOPRANO
Composed for SAA(CT)TB ensemble, "The Watchtower Psalms" is a five-part vocal ritual based on alchemical ideologies and the Enochian communications of John Dee and Edward Kelley in 16th Century England. Each movement is based on the four elements and the Quintessence, the union of them all.
The Times Are Nightfall: An Opera in One Act
Full orchestration: Soprano, Mezzo Soprano, Cello, Vibraphone, and Piano
Librettist - Aiden K. Feltkamp, with Chloë Schaaf Composer - Rosśa Crean
"The Times Are Nightfall" is the queer sequel to Mozart's "Don Giovanni." In this noir-style one-act, Anna and Elvira are coping with the aftermath of the events that have transpired as a result of Don Giovanni's treachery. The opera explores themes of rape culture and grief through the lens of two women who find solace in the most unexpected place: one another.
ROLES: Anna - Mezzo Soprano Elvira - Soprano
TW: blood, death, rape, suicide
The Times Are Nightfall: An Opera in One Act
Piano/Vocal Score
Librettist - Aiden K. Feltkamp, with Chloë Schaaf Composer - Rosśa Crean
"The Times Are Nightfall" is the queer sequel to Mozart's "Don Giovanni." In this noir-style one-act, Anna and Elvira are coping with the aftermath of the events that have transpired as a result of Don Giovanni's treachery. The opera explores themes of rape culture and grief through the lens of two women who find solace in the most unexpected place: one another.
ROLES: Anna - Mezzo Soprano Elvira - Soprano
TW: blood, death, rape, suicide
Three Sean-Nos Folk Songs are an unaccompanied collection for solo voice in Irish Gaelic. The sheet music also comes with several MP3s of the composer pronouncing and performing the pieces for reference.
Three Sean-Nos Folk Songs are an unaccompanied collection for solo voice in Irish Gaelic. The sheet music also comes with several MP3s of the composer pronouncing and performing the pieces for reference.
Three Sean-Nos Folk Songs are an unaccompanied collection for solo voice in Irish Gaelic. The sheet music also comes with several MP3s of the composer pronouncing and performing the pieces for reference.
Three Sean-Nos Folk Songs are an unaccompanied collection for solo voice in Irish Gaelic. The sheet music also comes with several MP3s of the composer pronouncing and performing the pieces for reference.
Three Sean-Nos Folk Songs are an unaccompanied collection for solo voice in Irish Gaelic. The sheet music also comes with several MP3s of the composer pronouncing and performing the pieces for reference.
Three Sean-Nos Folk Songs are an unaccompanied collection for solo voice in Irish Gaelic. The sheet music also comes with several MP3s of the composer pronouncing and performing the pieces for reference.
Three Sean-Nos Folk Songs are an unaccompanied collection for solo voice in Irish Gaelic. The sheet music also comes with several MP3s of the composer pronouncing and performing the pieces for reference.
