Rose Kosciuszek Student Feature, August 2023
Putting on a senior recital at Concord Community Music School is truly a one-of-a-kind experience. It is a unique opportunity to reflect on pre-college years spent at CCMS and the culmination of hours spent honing a skill through adolescence. For as long as she had been at the music school, vocal student and 2023 high school graduate Rose Kosciuszek knew she wanted to have her own senior recital, and her dream became a reality this spring with an authentic experience she will never forget.
“It’s not an audition or a huge concert, it’s something that is just for you and the people that support you,” she notes.
Rose first came to the music school in 2014, excited for the opportunity to sing athe summer Creative Arts Camp. She loved the freedom that came with expressing herself through singing, dancing, and creating, and to this day incorporates the free-dancing and yoga she learned at camp in her daily routine. It was a natural progression to join the Purple Finches that fall (at the suggestion of choral director Maria Isaak), and Rose went onto participate in recitals and productions with the group, earn a spot in the selective OAKE singing competition, study privately at CCMS, and even return to the summer camp as a Leader in Training.
The idea to put on a senior recital started percolating at a young age. When Rose was just starting in the Purple Finches, a mentor for the group put on her own senior recital and asked the finches to sing backup on one of the songs in the program. “I remember seeing her recital and thinking it was the coolest thing ever,” recalls Rose. “And I was like ‘I can’t wait until I can do that.’”
The time finally came this past fall when Rose was given the opportunity to construct her own senior recital. And despite what she knew would be a substantial amount of work combined with a hectic senior schedule, she jumped at the chance. “It was a cool opportunity to choose a whole lot of music that I really wanted to sing and create an entire program,” she says.
In putting together the set list, Rose sought to pay tribute to her years of study at CCMS. She started the program with a handful of musical theater pieces from her early days with the Purple Finches and first years studying privately with CCMS faculty Ellen Nordstrom. Rose also incorporated several classical pieces she studied as a junior with Jane Berlin Pauley and finished with jazz standards she discovered towards the end of her high school career. She even opened the recital with “In My Own Little Corner” from Cinderella, the first song she ever learned as a music school student and her father’s favorite song she sings.
“The program felt very well-rounded and representative of all my years here,” she notes.
Friends and family were on hand to celebrate Rose’s capstone achievement, lauding her talent and wishing her well as she heads off to college. And in the back of the recital hall, still in uniform having come right from a softball game, sat a group of current Purple Finches, who wouldn’t have missed the recital for the world. “It was lovely to see that,” smiles Rose, “because I remember when I was that age and seeing people’s recitals. It just made me feel so connected to the school.”
