Biography Roos Galjaard

Roos Roos Galjaard (1973) is composer, guitarist and singer based in Groningen, The Netherlands. She started singing and playing the guitar at an early age, and began performing her own songs when she was sixteen, first in the Netherlands, later on in Southern Africa. Since 1995 she spread her musical wings in the North of the Netherlands. Roos writes atmospheric, powerful songs fusing influences from folk, pop, jazz and world music - creating a pure form of music sparkling with enjoyment and passion.

All songs are written by Roos herself and are inspired by life in all of its facets. The lyrics include worldly matters, people in different situations: war, merry days of summer and experiences closer to home like parenthood and a little bit of love. At the same time, it’s of less importance for the listener to take all of this on board. Roos explains: “I love it if the audience can create their own reality, can lose themselves in thought and allow them to be taken along for the ride. I find it a beautiful thing to make pure music, stick to the basics and see that people are being touched by what I am doing”.

Roos can let her audience both dream away and make them sit right up to attention with her warm and powerful voice and excellent guitar playing.

"Roos Galjaard retains clarity in both the high as the lower regions of her voice. She can sing at full volume and almost at whispering beauty. Sometimes the songs are swinging, almost jazzy, sometimes the music may head towards ballads”.

With her band Gather Roses she recorded three CDs: Beautiful World (1998), Together (2001) and As the sun will guide me home (2011) and she released a solo album (I am Water) in July 2010 (“Rightfully a pure collection of some shining musical beauty pearls”).

Since 2011 she is touring with cello player Sebastiaan Wiering with whom she performs in the Netherlands and abroad, playing for example at the Singer songwriters festival in Copenhagen in Summer 2012 and 2015. In 2014 and 2015 they went into the studio together and recorded the CD Many Hours Still to Come which contains 8 beautifully composed songs arranged for cello, guitar and vocals with subtle contributions of oboe, trombone, trumpet, flute, percussion and violin. The title Many Hours Still to Come is an excerpt from the song 'Tattoo City' about Roos wandering in the city of Barcelona in the late 1990s and reflects a timeless place in imagination. It is a song Roos and Sebastiaan have both taken to heart right from the beginning of their cooperation and has been an integral part of their live shows for years now.