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"I
am, by vocation and profession, a nurse whose life
is suffused with music and a musician whose days are rich with
the privilege of caring for others."
These
are the words of Rosemary Phelan, a gifted and award-winning singer,
songwriter, musician, and Registered nurse who has chosen to use
her considerable talent to bring comfort to the sick and help
ease the passage of those who have come to the end of this life's
journey. "For me," she says, "life itself has ever been felt,
measured, and understood in music, inside and out; in darkness
and in light." Even as a child, Rosemary recognized passing ticks,
hums, clicks, and whirrs as not just noise, but as sounds that
offered a meaningful opportunity for connecting to life in a whole
new way.
Growing up in a multi-cultural, musical family laid a foundation
for Rosemary's lifelong appreciation of worldwide musical cultures
and traditions, and allowed her to polish her vocal skills while
learning to play a variety of musical instruments. She attended
schools in both the US and Europe, and eventually landed in rural
Vermont, where she spent her early adulthood living in the woodlands,
listening to and learning the wisdom of nature, while receiving
training as a massage therapist and becoming a part of the local
folk music scene.
After
emigrating to Canada, Rosemary's dual path of music and healing
began to blossom and she embraced it fully. Graduating with honors
as a Registered nurse, she enhanced her training with studies
in traditional herbalism, and music as a means for therapy, healing,
and transition; at the same time, she was also a student at the
Royal Conservatory of Music, studying voice and classical piano.
Rosemary
continues to work as a nurse in community care and is studying
the clinical applications of music for illness and at the end
of life. Her CDs have been described as "richly evocative journals
of a life deeply lived," and they reward the listener with "subtle
beauty from start to finish." A portion of the proceeds from the
sale of each CD goes to support The Healing Coop, a non-profit
resource center and healing environment for women living with
cancer, and their families.
"I've lived and worked in the pristine wilderness of nature and
the human lost-and-found of the grittiest urban core. There is
still so much to learn, but what I have noticed is this: the longer
I walk this two-fold path that calls me, the more real my music
becomes, and the more certain my hands in their healing work."
Rosemary Phelan
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