Rose Cheney Music

In many ways, to hear Rose Cheney at work is to witness the release of a caged bird. Here is a singer/songwriter with charm and finesse - someone of tender disposition - but with a strength and resolve to surprise you, as she beats home her message with poignant jazz-tinged cadences. There is a sheen of pure honesty at the heart of her unique phrasing and intonation. Something extra. A quality and nuance which appeals.

For songwriting inspiration, Rose draws on personal themes as well as some darker moments we might all recognise, but the messages in Rose's songs may not always be obvious, and that's how she likes it. "I found freedom in music when I discovered its power to communicate emotion", comments Rose. "Music's like a window into the soul and I love peering through it".

At age 13, Rose sat at her mother's piano and began to tease out her first musical ideas - snippets which would later surface as finished songs. Absorbed with the style of big-band jazz and blues singers like Ella Fitzgerald and fuelled by the desire to create well-polished songs of her own making, Rose played out her feelings, accompanying herself on the keyboard and matching her words with the musical sentiments she'd uncovered.

Fast-forward a few years and you find Rose playing local gigs as well as appearing live on BBC News to support live music, thanks to her moving, crowd-pleasing performances of some standard cover songs. She has worked on BBC radio 6, performing with other artists on the Alan Tompson show and her original songs have had an airing on Radio Cardiff.

For a prolonged moment there was a departure into Drum & Bass under the pseudonym 'Rose-tinted', working with producers Synth Sense, Triad, Dakosa, Anile and Clarity, which gained Rose a loyal following at acclaimed London club, Fabric. Despite this success, her real strength lies in her passionate delivery of piano-based songs and it is to this genre that she has recently returned.

Rose Cheney, whose surname may be derived from a nickname for someone with a "heart of oak" (appropriate for someone who originates from Kent, the Garden of England) now resides near Welshpool in Mid Wales. In the hills, not far from there, is ScorpioSongs - an independent micro record label - where Rose is embarking on her new recording career.

Nigel Watts-Plumpkin, producer at ScorpioSongs, has a bold creative vision for Rose Cheney which is very much in keeping with her spirited personality. "Rose's songs are memorable, engaging and have an organic quality which is driving the production values of her records and her publicity", comments Nigel.

Her first recording, Caged Bird - which was made 'Song of the Month' on BBC Introducing, Radio Shropshire - appears with three more original songs on Rose's debut EP with the intriguing title: M.I.M.A. Is this a place, a person, an object? No, it's an acronym and when asked to explain the initials, Rose simply states: "Well, Music Is My Antidote".