The Gift of Music Keeps Her Young
by Lou Pine
[photo credit to Tara Schroeder]
“Music has been 100% of my reason for living,” says organist and pianist Rosa Rio. “Making people happy with music has been a rewarding way of life for her. Today, after being in show business for more than 80 years, the dynamic Rio still brings smiles to hundreds of people’s faces with her masterly produced performances.
At a very young age, Rio realized she was blessed with a musical gift: she could play anything she heard and she could improvise on any tune. “I have always felt my gift was from God, but with a tag that said, ‘It’s to share.’”
In order to share her gift fully, Rio understood the need to be educated. She started her studies at the Oberlin Conservatory. After one year, she transferred to the Eastman School of Music, where a course in silent film accompaniment was offered. It was the only course of its kind in the United States, and it was the springboard to her long career.
She began as a professional theatre organist in Syracuse, New York, during the golden age of silent films. Even with the advent of sound in 1927, she continued to accompany movies through the early 1930s until the “talkies” forced her to adapt her livelihood. This was at the height of the Great Depression, what Rio calls “the days of red beans and rice.” When asked if making music has helped her with the stresses of life, she replied, “How else would I have survived the Depression era? … I played the blues away.”
Adapting her talent and skills, Rio became a successful accompanist and vocal coach. One day a Broadway producer hired Rio to play for a singer who was trying to get her break on the New York stage. The singer was an unknown named Mary Martin (remember Peter Pan?) and when Martin auditioned for composer Cole Porter, Rio was her accompanist.
In 1938, Rio made another career transition. She became the first female staff organist hired by NBC radio. The network’s personnel at that time consisted of 100 male musicians. “I was not welcomed by the men on staff at NBC, at first … little tricks were played on me but eventually I won their respect as a musician … The sign then, and even now reads, ‘For Men Only!’ but I never had good eyesight!”
Rio became one of the busiest organists on staff at NBC when word got around that she didn’t need a rehearsal; she was that good. At times, all she had was 40 seconds to run from one studio to the next. Of the two-dozen shows she worked on during the 22 years she was in radio, the most famous was The Shadow, which starred Orson Welles.
While at NBC, Rio decided to continue her music education. She studied with the famous theorist Joseph Schillinger, who taught a mathematical approach to music composition. “I had a great faculty for improvisation. At times, I was terrific, and at times when I wanted to be, it wasn’t there. What I needed was for it to be there all the time.” Rio found in Schillinger’s system the tools to fulfill this important need.
Her type of accompaniment didn’t work well with the new medium of television, so Rio adapted. She moved to Connecticut and opened a school of music, where she taught organ, piano and voice.
Her career started to come full circle in 1984. A company hired her to score and play the musical accompaniment for video recordings of over 360 silent films, using a Hammond organ. The circle became complete in 1996, when Rio began producing shows at the newly renovated historic Tampa Theatre in Florida, where she accompanies silent films just as she did back in the ‘20s & ‘30’s.
Rising out of the pit playing a Mighty Wurlitzer Theatre organ, she is greeted by an enthusiastic reception from an audience ranging from teenagers to octogenarians. Rio performs a short recital of well-known tunes followed by a sing-a-long before the featured film. “I’m putting on a program for people to see what went on successfully for years,” Rio said recently after playing almost non-stop for two hours at one of her performances.
And then she’s off to meet her adoring public. “I cannot understand some performers in my field—they vanish after their final number. I can’t get out fast enough to the lobby to greet people from my audience—shake hands, listen, exchange …”
Besides her performances, Rio continues to teach and give workshops. What motivates her? She says,“… a burning desire of both expressing and sharing my music.” Music has kept this dynamo young and vibrant in mind, body and soul. About Rosa Rio, who could ask for anything more!
