Teen to Perform Debut Album at Horsham's Scatter Joy Center

By Naila Francis

HORSHAM, PA -- Two years ago, when Rose Elizabeth began taking voice lessons with local music teacher, Anthony Viscounte, she would bring in some of her favorite songs to be coached as she sang them.

Those 30-minute sessions were always the favorite part of her week. Then Viscounte, himself a singer-songwriter with two of his own self-produced EPs under his belt, suggested that she might be ready to write and record her own songs. Little did the Horsham musician know, the budding songstress had been writing her own lyrics, and hiding them away, for over a year.

Now the 14-year-old, a freshman at Villa Joseph Marie High School, is preparing for her debut CD release. Rose Elizabeth will perform songs from that EP, and other originals, in a concert at the Scatter Joy Center for the Arts in Horsham on Feb. 11, sharing the stage with friends Ally McDonald and Abby Zwall.

“In this album, I mainly just want to tell a story. In my opinion, songs that tell a story that the listener can understand after the first 30 seconds of listening are the best types of song,” says Rose Elizabeth, who charts a diverse, country-tinged terrain in her debut, exploring subjects ranging from motherhood’s ever-fleeting joys to finding forever love and overcoming a painful childhood.

"Writing music is like my journal writings in a way. I write down how I feel and turn it into music. My other songs are stories or messages that I want to share," says Rose Elizabeth.

While some songs are inspired by her own life or that of people close to her — “Love Without An End” celebrates her aunt’s engagement — several invite the listener into her imagination. “Life Under Sheets,” for instance, came to her as a title phrase before shaping itself into the story of a motherless girl raised in the shadows of her father’s alcoholism who still grows up to find love and raise her own happy family. “Pray” explores the lives of three very different people whose faith serves an anchor in the midst of their struggles.

“My hope after people hear the songs is to be known as a storyteller,” she says. “When I write a song, it almost always starts with a random melody or random line of a lyric that comes to my head and I just continue from there. For example, I was walking my dog and all of a sudden I thought of the lines, ‘We have years of time, miles and miles of roads,’ and I made it into a love song and continued from there.

“I always have to be sitting in a quiet room with no distractions or outside when it’s quiet and warm and I can focus.”

Attention to song craft is one thing, sharing those songs on stage entirely another. After all, for many years, singing was something Rose Elizabeth did only in front of the mirror. She briefly took piano lessons as a young girl and music classes in grade school.

“But there was not much about singing. I had a huge fear of singing in front of anyone,” she says.

Still, she was always learning the lyrics to songs she loved to sing them to herself. Then in sixth grade, she confessed her secret to her mom, who suggested she try out for her school’s upcoming theater production at Nativity of Our Lord. Up until that moment, her daughter’s greatest interest had seemed to be soccer.

“I auditioned the first year and remember hiding behind my paper and shaking the entire time,” says Rose Elizabeth, who nonetheless landed a role in the performing arts program’s production of “Mulan.”

She went on to win parts in “Beauty and the Beast Jr.” the following year and “Lion King Jr.” in eighth grade, pushing further past her fears with each performance.

But while theater may have gotten her into singing, it was a Carrie Underwood concert in 2016 that sealed her fate as a would-be singer-songwriter.

“Whenever I go to a concert or play, I walk out thinking ‘That has to be fun,’ or ‘I would love to do that.’ Usually, the feeling wears away by the next day,” says Rose Elizabeth. “When the concert started, I got that same feeling again; the only difference was that the feeling and the desire to perform grew stronger… As I got in the car and drove home listening to her music again on the radio that night, I remember thinking, ‘I want to do that someday.’”

She has been steadfast in her commitment ever since, with Underwood serving as her greatest influence. Her penchant for country music may seem unusual at an age where she admits many of her peers are listening to pop or rap, but she appreciates its accessibility and expressive candor.

“It uses music and lyrics to get good messages and stories to the listeners instead of constant profanity and fast words that you can’t understand without looking up the lyrics,” she says. “Storytelling is what country singers and country songs do. It’s what they are good at.”

In the year since she began sharing her songs with Viscounte, she’s been writing nonstop and has 13 originals she can feel proud of under her belt.

“My only hope for the future is to spread my message and be able to perform my songs for people. I also want to continue writing and recording my own songs,” says Rose Elizabeth. “I don’t need to become ‘famous’ or ‘popular’ to get my message across.”

Rose Elizabeth performs Feb. 11 with Ally McDonald and Abby Zwall at the Scatter Joy Center for the Arts, 305 Horsham Road, Horsham, Pa. 19044. Show time is 7 p.m. Admission is free. Information: 215-672-3140; www.scatterjoyarts.org.

Image via Naila Francis