EDUCATOR
Along with her enduring love of live performance, Pamela Rose has also spent years teaching Vocal Performance classes and developing multi-media Lectures, with a focus on American music history.
lectures & presentations
Rose is a popular OLLI (Osher Life Long Learning) instructor, affiliated with UC Berkeley, Sonoma State, San Francisco State, and Santa Clara University. Many of these are multi-week in-person classes rich with biographical detail, music appreciation, audio and video clips and lots of sing-a-longs.
All of these courses can be modified for length or enhanced with live performance by adding a musician or two.
For more info, contact Pamela.
Great Jewish Women of the American Songbook
(2 hour class)
Is it a coincidence that many of the popular songs written in the Golden Age of Music (1920 – 1970) were written by Jews? And quite a few of them were women as well. With Pamela Rose we explore some of the cultural changes and influences – travelling Yiddish theatre, early vaudeville, the theory of the 'outsider' – all of which contributed to a path which gave rise to Tin Pan Alley, Ragtime, Hollywood musicals, Broadway and early Motown.
Great Women of the American Songbook
(6 week series)
Celebrating the oft invisible women who gave us some of our most beloved American songs, instructor Pamela Rose takes the class on an unforgettable journey through the decades – from early Tin Pan Alley, Broadway, Jazz, Country, Folk, to Motown and Rock.
Etta James & Ray Charles – Lives, Times & Music
(3 week series)
Few singers touch our souls as deeply as Etta James and Ray Charles. They took our breath away with naked emotional truth, whether crooning tenderly or smoking ‘em down. But each also transcended typical music labels, straddling jazz, blues, country, R & B, gospel, by creating their own unique sound, bigger than any genre.
All the more extraordinary considering that both artists managed not only to survive their difficult early years, fighting Jim Crow laws on the road, and standing up for themselves as they carved out a unique place in music that we now call ‘soul’.
Great Women of the Blues
(3 week series)
When most people think of the Blues, the first image that comes to mind is a man and his guitar. Yet the truth is that women were the early carriers of this music, certainly the first popularizers of it.
Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Dinah Washington, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Memphis Minnie, Ruth Brown, Etta James, Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin, Nina Simone, Bonnie Raitt…each of these women used this ‘truth-telling’ art form to challenge how we think of women, and to let us hear their frank and powerful voices.
