Portland composer Judy A. Rose was recently approached by a friend who exclaimed, “Judy, you’ve made it.”

Perhaps it was after In Medio Choir premiered Judy’s ten-movement cantata Walk in Beauty, Walk in Light last year. Or it could have been because her pieces were showcased at the 2020 Oregon American Choral Directors Local Reading Session. But Judy closed her eyes for a moment after she relayed that story, and then gently shook her head. “No,” she said with her wry smile. “I don’t know what that means, but, no.”

Judy is more likely to tell you, as she told OAW in a recent conversation, she feels that as a composer she’s just getting started. She’s had successes, to be sure: works published with Santa Barbara Music Publishing, Gentry Publications, MusicSpoke, and being offered a couple of commissions. But she readily points out that she didn’t start out, didn’t study, to be a composer. Although, she laughed, “my spouse says I’ve always been a composer.”

Still, as many composing creatives will admit, there can be performances when a composition does “make it”; times when a group sings with passion and really seems to understand the “story” behind the composition. In this past holiday season, when Portland Symphonic Choir performed Judy’s I Found Me A River, the Portland composer was ecstatic as she took her bows. Perhaps it was the wonderful solo by Jasmine Johnson; perhaps it was PSC Artistic Director Alissa Deeter’s approach – about which Judy remarked, according to Deeter, “I never ever would have thought of the things that you did.” 

Listen to that Portland Symphonic Choir performance here:

You have the opportunity to hear and to learn about the creation of River when the Portland Symphonic Choir presents “Rising Together” on Sunday, June 22. In fact, you will get to hear four works by Rose in this unique PSC event, in which Judy, and other composers, will share some of their creative motivation.

“This is art being made in real time,” Deeter said in recent conversation with OAW. “The spirit of the concert is thinking more fully about what the choral composing community is offering, why a piece was made, what is it’s story.” The concert is also a final dress rehearsal: Judy’s concert pieces, and others, will be recorded the following week.

Judy’s works all have a story, and many of those stories come directly from Judy’s own life. She has captured moments when wind and frozen ice — and hearts — brought Portland area trees to the ground.  Moments of joy, of yearning, of sorrow. Judy also reaches back to her childhood for the stories you can feel in her music.

Such a baddie!

Judy A. Rose was born in Weirton, West Virginia. Memories of her first five years, which were spent in foster care, include the sounds and feelings of spirituals and gospel music — joy from the congregants and musicians in the Black Baptist church. Life changed significantly when Irena, a single white woman living in Sacramento, became Judy’s adoptive mother and gave her a home filled with music, including the classics and Broadway musicals. Irene, an accomplished pianist and violinist, was Judy’s first piano teacher. 

We all have moments that we later look back upon as formative, or at least eye-opening. For Judy, it was when her mother took her and her sister Lisa to Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker. It was not the dancers that caught her attention; it was the music, and the conductor who brought it to life. 

Judy continued in the interview, revealing details of her early life – internalizing the spiritual and gospel music, realizing she had perfect pitch, and about her foster care mother, Mama Essie. Then her face lit up, and she declared proudly, “I was born on Ella Fitzgerald’s birthday. El-la Fitz-gerald; such a baddie!” Judy’s wide smile and sparkling eyes suggested that perhaps she herself had somehow engineered her April 25, 1966 arrival into the world. Or maybe it was karma.

Now, before venturing further, readers, you should know that having Judy refer to you a “baddie” — or another similar endearment — is one of her highest compliments. And, when face to face, “baddie” comes with a beaming smile and a hug that connects heart to heart. That, like Judy Rose, is the real deal. 

Irene met and married Bob Rose, and the family moved to Eugene, Oregon, where they lived a short while before moving to La Grande, where there was steady work. Eastern Oregon would be Judy’s home through high school.

Judy continued her piano lessons, but was not content to remain within the confines of notes on a page. Aided by her perfect pitch, she preferred to improvise –  to explore by ear. But have you heard Judy at the keyboard – accompanying her high school students on solo-ensemble literature, playing full open choral score? She can play it all, from Schubert to Sondheim.

Judy also enjoyed school athletics, especially basketball. She shared that she was hurt when she was hatefully excluded from the basketball team, but a nurturing musical community at La Grande High School welcomed her in. 

She was soon thoroughly involved in the multifaceted music and stage offerings, and received support and encouragement from La Grande High School choral director Jay Michael Frasier. 

“The first moment I realized I would like to be a conductor was when Mr. Frasier, my high school teacher, had to be gone and asked if in his absence I would rehearse one of the choir’s pieces. It was like a lightning bolt.” In addition to boosting her confidence, she said, Frasier also reintroduced Judy to spirituals; singing the spiritual arrangements of composer William Dawson was an awakening.

Years, later, in  2021, during a composing residency at Hedgebrook, Judy would write a tribute to Dawson’s 1934 arrangement of Soon Ah Will Be Done. Listen to Chemeketa Community College sing Judy’s uplifting modern spiritual arrangement here: 

OAW reached out to Frasier, a musician highly respected in Eastern Oregon and around the state for his 50 years of teaching and community chorus directing. He was eager to email his recollections of his student Judy A. Rose:

“When I first met Judy I was immediately struck by her enthusiasm for music, her outgoing personality and her talent,” he wrote. “She was selected to be a member of the select A cappella choir, and the even more select Swing (Jazz) Choir. Along with singing in these two ensembles, Judy occasionally served as accompanist, student director of the A cappella Choir, stage manager for the high school musical, rehearsal accompanist for the high school musical, and as an actress in stage productions.”

Frasier knew some of Judy’s peers would remember their classmate, whom they honored – actually crowned Queen of the Court – to represent La Grande High in the District’s annual “Music in May” festival. 

“When I reached out to others in her class for their reflections on Judy,” Frasier continued, “they mentioned her leadership, enthusiasm, talent, and … humor! Judy was always ready to add a little bit of humor to any of the activities that she was involved in.”

Frasier has also worked with Judy professionally when they attended workshops on gospel music in Portland.

“Watching her successes now,” said Frasier, “and knowing that her time and experiences at La Grande high school played a small part in her development, should make all of us in La Grande proud.”

Keep on keeping on

Judy was accepted to Berklee College of Music in Massachusetts but could not afford the tuition. After high school she worked to save up enough money to begin college classes at University of Montana, but after moving to Missoula the following spring, she also began accompanying dance classes at the university and touring with Montana Repertory Theatre.

“I was so young,” said Judy, “but I learned so much,” including how she needed a more intimate university experience. She returned to Oregon’s Treasure Valley, where a full scholarship to Treasure Valley Community College allowed her to graduate with an Associate of Arts Degree. Judy also found her way back to musical theater with TVCC’s Theatre Department.

“I wrote my first choral composition at Treasure Valley,” Judy said with a laugh. “It was called Come See the King, and was for choir and flute.”  Does she still have it?  She does. “I never throw anything away. I tell my students you never know, there might be a kernel there for a work in the future.”

Judy wanted to be a teacher, and in that respect she has indeed “made it.” Watching her with students today, you might say she’s always been a teacher. To get her teaching degree she moved to Portland, enrolled at Portland State University, and kept on keeping on.

“I was on the ten-year plan at PSU,” Judy quipped. Taking classes, taking jobs to pay for classes, more classes, and some valuable nurturing along the way. “I’ll start crying,” said Judy. “There were a lot of people who did a lot for me at PSU; it was just such a baddie force.” 

She recalls PSU Professor Bruce Browne saying, in front of the lab choir she was conducting, “You are going to be – already are – a fine conductor. Not only your gesture but your feel for the music.” 

“You didn’t cross Dr. Browne,” Judy remarked, “but I could always see the respect in his eyes.”

Then Judy spoke gently about Professor Mary Kogen, to whom Judy gives gratitude for nurturing and believing in her. In the early ‘90s Kogen, who died in 2022, was coordinating Portland State’s Summer Enrichment Music Camps and asked Judy to be the choir director of the fourth graders. “I was an undergrad and she picked me. She believed in my abilities and was like a mother to me.”

Judy currently teaches Lower (4th/5th Grade) and Upper school music at The Catlin Gabel School in Portland, where her students learn about singing, songwriting, rock band and the joy of creativity. Prior to Catlin, Judy taught middle and high music students in Portland Public Schools. 

“I’ve always wanted to do music differently; I actually had that experience as a kid,” Judy remembered. Her middle school music teacher, Donald Newman, let the students work things out – experiment. “He was a person with a beautiful, kind-hearted spirit and he trusted our musicality. He gave me the foundation of discovery and play.”

It is telling that Judy’s recollections about her creative life always shift to stories of thanks for the people who helped pave the way. Nurturers, confidence boosters and advocates. And Mia Hall Miller would turn out to be one of the fiercest advocates in Judy’s compositional career. “Mia Hall Miller is the reason I’m a published composer.” Miller is, you guessed it, a baddie.

Mia Hall Miller, founding and now retired Artistic Director of Pacific Youth Choir, remembers first meeting Judy in the 1990s, at First Presbyterian church in Portland. In a recent email to OAW she wrote: “In her music and in her person I related to an authenticity of her soul and being.” As the two women shared stories of personal challenges, it deepened their friendship. Miller was about to turn her dream of a Pacific Youth Choir into reality. 

“At some point I asked Judy to send [me] music she was writing for choirs. Yemaya Assessu was one such piece. At that point there were about 100 in the PYC high school SATB choir, and I asked for permission to teach and perform it.” Judy attended the rehearsals and performed on djembe in the premiere Yemaya PYC performance. “I encouraged her to publish it.” Miller believed Judy was ready. 

Judy heard Miller’s encouragement.  “But what I didn’t know how to do then was ask for advocacy. And throughout my career I had been in the shadow of all dudes calling the shots. The dudes abide,” she laughed. But she made a few calls to folks who might know other folks who knew about publishing.

“Next thing I know,” wrote Miller, “I get a call from Santa Barbara Publishing House about [Yemaya] and sent off our first recording of it with Judy on Djembe.” 

Yemaya Assessu, Judy’s arrangement of a Yoruba chant, was published by Santa Barbara. It is dedicated to Mia Hall Miller. Choral directors in six states heard the work when Miller programmed it for the Northwestern American Choral Directors Conference in 2022. In a final concert before her retirement from PYC, Miller programmed the soul-stirring work. Watch that performance here.

Judy was learning about advocacy. Not only taking it when offered so graciously – performances, guest appearances, commissions and encouraging comments – but advocating for herself. She networks with local conductors, sends her works to choral ensembles, promoting and believing in her own creativity. She maintains her own website, where she not only posts her own performances but also advocates for others. 

And Judy has learned that sometimes advocacy can come as frank advice. She credits Barbara Hawlow, founding and now retired President of Santa Barbara Music Publishing, for teaching her how to present her pieces properly for publication. “She was hard on me,” said Judy, admitting that Gwendolyn, her partner of 21 years — “my better angel and a model for amazing empathy and compassion” — sometimes consoled her after a publisher session ended in tears. Yet, said Judy, “Barbara didn’t have to spend that time with me, but she did.” And Judy learned.

“Yes, my mother was was hard on Judy, on [Portland choral composer] Joan Szymko, on everybody,” laughed David Harlow, current SBMP president and Barbara’s son. “Because she wanted the best in their work.” He was pleased to share in recent conversation with OAW that “Judy is tremendous, and has been a joy for us to work with over the years. She has an eye for putting words and music together. It’s quality music that gives you an emotional reaction; you feel it.”  

Kim Stafford, Oregon’s Poet Laureate from 2018 to 2020, agrees, and wrote in a recent email to OAW about his emotional reaction to hearing his poem Resilience set to music by Judy Rose:

“As a humble poet, I am accustomed to seeing my work on the page, or hearing it read aloud. My world got bigger when Judy Rose chose to set my poem Resilience for choral performance. And even bigger when she invited me to join the chorus. Her ear for the rhythm of words, for the dynamic of voice shifting from solo to unison, and her inclusion of percussive snaps and stamps by the performers put me inside a song that had been bare words in print. I was inspired by her skill, heart, devotion to bringing forth the sung meaning from words.”

Resilience was premiered at Cascadia Composers’ “Fearless Lieder” event in 2024. Judy sang in that performance, conducted by Shohei Kobayashi, with poetry read by Stafford. Watch it here: 

Her friendship with Portland’s Grant High School music teacher John Eisemann began when they were PPS colleagues. Jubilant Day, now also published by Santa Barbara, was written and gifted to Grant High School when Judy was teaching at Lane Middle School. Hear Eisemann and students talk about the piece and about teacher Judy Rose:

But the seed of Jubilant Day came out of a moment in Judy’s life when she was viciously targeted in a highway incident. “I immediately thought, ‘How can I write it out?’ When I arrived home, I wrote down the beginning line of the piece, ‘Each day begins and ends with me’.” She wrote her feelings into her text:  “There’s a day in my heart that’s burning in my soul” and “evil can’t win unless you let it,” and into the unrelenting declaration of “I found me a jubilant day.” 

Willamette Master Chorus, which continued to sing virtually during the pandemic shutdown, chose to close its 2022 “Songs of Perseverance” virtual concert with Judy’s Jubilant Day. Watch that performance here:

Writing it out

Judy described more moments that sparked her compositions. I Found Me A River, mentioned above, was conceived as a place of solace to which Judy turned after the death of  Abdirahman Abdi in Canada in 2016. “Spirituals can be a salve,” said Judy. That piece is dedicated to Mamma Essie Brown and Aubrey Patterson and West Linn High School Choir.

She wrote, as a Washington ACDA commission, a triptych titled Ode To The Wind, Moon, Trees, and the Rising Stars to commemorate the tragic ice storm of January 2024. Here is the third movement, performed by Central Washington University’s Vox Divina:

Yes, Judy works through her feelings in her compositions. But she also turns to nature as a solace, and for rejuvenation and to stop the noise. She is particularly fond of birds, and has captured many of them in photos. One of the menus on her website is  “Wild Life/Nature Photos,” and it is there that you can meet this owl: such a baddie, right? 

And the sounds of nature seem to come alive when Judy plays flute. In her original composition for flute and piano, You Are Not Alone In This World, Judy plays her Quiet Bear Native American style flute.  In the aforementioned “Fearless Lieder” event ,Judy improvised on flute as Elizabeth Woody, Oregon’s Poet Laureate from 2016 to 2018, read “We Remember Our Relatives.” 

Judy’s works are appropriate for varying levels and sizes of choral ensembles. Om, Shanti, Om was chosen by the California Choral Directors Associate Program Repertoire and Resources Chair for High School as an ideal piece for young singers.

But in the past few years two of Portland’s professional choirs have become advocates for Judy’s creativity by commissioning works for their choirs. First, as part of its 2023 “Portland Protests” series, Resonance Ensemble commissioned Judy to set the words of poet Vin Shambry. The result, Re-flec, premiered in 2023, Judy’s first venture into setting the poetry of a local artist. About the piece, Judy wrote:

“It is crucial we take the time to reflect upon how we individually affect the whole of racism and injustice, so we may more fully understand collectively how we affect racism and injustice.”

Read her full program notes here. And watch Resonance’s premiere performance of Re-flec here:

The second commission marked a collaboration with her good friend John Eisemann. In Medio Choir commissioned a Judy A. Rose work that would be a modern response to Randall Thompson’s 1936  Peaceable Kingdom. OAW wrote about Judy’s Walk in Beauty, Walk in Light after the premiere in June of 2024.  

In Medio recorded Walk in Beauty, Walk in Light after the concert so the cantata could reach a wider audience than the packed house of friends and students and supporters. Enjoy it here:

Portland Symphonic Choir will perform “Rise Up Singing, Dancing,” the penultimate movement from Walk in Beauty, on its June 22 concert at Christ United Methodist Church in Cedar Mill.  Tickets and more information about that concert are here. 

“Rise Up” is a work that can stand on its own. It is uplifting, with a bit of jazz appeal and some eye-popping fully bloomed chords. It is an appropriate contrast to the warning in Movement II, “Woe Unto You: Karma” in which Judy invokes the Golden Rule. But in Movement IV, “Noises from the Multitudes,” explains Judy, “I am really talking about racism, and how badly we continue treating one another; about how quick people point out they are not part of an issue and that it is on someone else. Silence is not golden. If we don’t speak to help our brother or our sister, silence is not golden.”

But in hurtful times, Judy believes we can find peace. In Movement VI: “Hummingbird,” Judy hopes we all can find inner contentment and peace within ourselves.

Her compositions have been noticed. Judy A. Rose has been included in a recently published valuable choral  resource, Choral Repertoire by Women Composers, by Hilary Apfelstadt and Alan Troy Davis. The book highlights “the lives and music of more than 200 women choral composers spanning different time periods and geographic locations” (publisher notes).

“Some women are not included in the book,” said Judy, hefting the weighty publication, flipping to the index to cite a few of her absent colleagues. “I don’t know why.” But being in the “big blue book” is an honor that both humbles and thrills her.

Judy’s energy is palpable; she speaks directly but never unkindly. She beams with pride about the accomplishments of her students, speaks tenderly about those who have given her love and nurturing, and is reluctant to tout her own “success.” 

But she will talk at great length about the hummingbird. “Hummer can show you all of life’s treasures. You watch them going forward, backward, up, down. They play. They are such baddies. Hummer is about the freedom to just be.” Judy lives in the hope that we can all walk in that light.

***

The music of Judy A. Rose is published with Santa Barbara Music Publishing. Gentry Publications and MusicSpoke.

“Choral Repertoire by Women Composers” by Hilary Apfelstadt and Alan Troy Davis is available at the publisher site, GIA, in bookstores and online.

Visit Judy A. Rose for more information, music video and wild life.