Rosie Coolidge
Bishop O’Connell High School
Last year, Rosie Coolidge released an EP of her own songs on Spotify and iTunes. Called My Musical Mind, with ballads titled “Stronger Than You Think” and “Together as One,” the record showcases her lyricism and soothing alto voice.
Perhaps it’s no surprise that Coolidge, a self-taught guitarist, was chosen to be the first student leader of the music ministry at Bishop O’Connell, where she reworked the music at Mass to include praise and worship songs different from the traditional hymns sung in the Catholic Church. “They say singing is praying twice,” she says.
Music has also kept the Falls Church teen connected to her dad, a lawyer and musician (he played guitar and wrote his own music) who died of a brain tumor when she was 2. “I’ve always seen myself as different from everyone else, seeing everyone else’s relationships with their fathers, knowing that’s what it would have been like,” she says. “Music is the way I connect to him, even though he’s not here.”
A member of the National Honor Society, Coolidge has led blood donation drives at Bishop O’Connell for the past two years and was captain of the varsity volleyball team. Last summer, she organized donations of personalized pillowcases for an orphanage in Zambia, where she spent a month taking care of the children and teaching guitar to the older boys. “It was so fun to see them enjoy the simple things,” she says. “We don’t get that a lot here.”
This fall, Coolidge heads to Belmont University in Nashville, otherwise known as “Music City.” She has had four ear surgeries, two of which removed a benign tumor in her left ear.Those experiences, she says, led to her decision to study nursing.
Lisa Lednicer also writes about personal fitness and the father of high-def television in this issue.