Roselyn Pearl Ward

1941 -

Rosie Ward, a pianist, organist, and conductor, has played a major role in establishing music programs in Seventh-day Adventist schools throughout the Caribbean and in Central and South America. Her influence on colleagues and students has become legendary during a career that has included teaching music at four Seventh-day Adventist colleges and universities and serving at different times as chair of the music programs in those schools.

Rosie was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, one of two daughters of Pearl and Arthur A. Ward, and grew up living in Trinidad, Barbados, and Guyana. As a young child she was influenced by the classical music her father played in the evenings and the sound of the King's Heralds Quartet.

She began playing Sabbath School songs by ear at age five and at age six started taking piano lessons. The lessons continued through grade school, high school, and college, along with preparatory music study for and the taking of periodic Royal schools of music examinations.

After graduating from Caribbean Union College high school in 1960, Ward enrolled as a music major at Emmanuel Missionary College, now Andrews University, in 1961. She graduated with a B.Mus.Ed. in 1965, with piano and organ as her performance areas and completed an M.A. the following year in the same performance areas, studying with C. Warren Becker, Hans Jørgen-Holman, and Blythe Owen. Following graduation in 1966, she attended a Fred Waring workshop in August before returning to Trinidad.

Ward taught at Caribbean Union College, a junior college at that time, in Port of Spain, for the next three years. She then accepted a position at Central American College, now University, in Costa Rica, where she taught for six years, from 1969 to 1975, and then worked at North Caribbean University in Jamaica for eight years.

For the next eleven years, Ward served at Adventist University of Colombia until she returned to the Caribbean in 1994 to teach at the University of the Southern Caribbean, formerly Caribbean Union College. In addition to teaching there as a professor of music, she also maintains a private studio.

Ward has taught piano to students of all ages and performance levels. She has taught music theory and history, music education, music appreciation, ministry of music, and hymnology. She has conducted choirs of all age groups, from children to college students, and conducted and played in handbell choirs.

Ward has also composed and arranged both secular and sacred music for a variety of groups and occasions. Most recently she composed a new university song, Beyond Excellence, for the inaugural celebration of the University of the Southern Caribbean's new status as a university.

Through the years she has sought to improve her teaching by attending numerous workshops and master classes. Highlights of those professional activities included several Orf/Kodaly workshops in Costa Rica, a summer session at AU in 1977, and piano master classes while teaching in Colombia. A more recent and inspiring activity was a choral workshop at Westminster Choir College in 2003.

Throughout her career, Ward has been active as a pianist and organist, giving and assisting in recitals, participating in chamber music, and performing countless solos. She recently observed, however, that the most satisfying part of her career has been found "in touching and shaping the lives and musical talents of hundreds of youth throughout the Inter-American Division."

ds/2010

Source: Information provided by Roselyn Ward, August and November 2010.