Musical gift from Liz Rogers

It’s a bittersweet farewell and exciting new beginnings for singer-songwriter Elizabeth Rogers who has chosen to launch her new music CD Breathe & Begin in the Universal Hall on Friday, 16 April.

Appropriately it is to her spiritual home at the Findhorn Foundation that she has returned, acknowledging that it was here in community that she was nurtured and inspired to launch her musical career.

Her new album features 10 hauntingly beautiful songs, each of which owes something special to the Findhorn area and community, which recognised her talent almost before she did, helping her to grow wings and fly.

“This is where the songs gestated and there is a bit of Findhorn, directly or indirectly, in each one of them,” she said. “The launch of the new album is a farewell gift to the place I love and the people I love so deeply. It will be bittersweet. I love this place with all my heart but I have a very strong feeling that it is now time to go.”

Manhattan-born Liz first arrived in 2000 and lived here for around seven years, with a recurring theme of her music being the idea of leaving home to find home. It is with gratitude that she remembers her first Living in Community focaliser, Dürten Lau, refusing her application for a bursary and insisting: “You have a great gift. Use it!” This was the shove she needed to stage her first concert in the Universal Hall, earning her much-needed funds and providing an essential boost to her confidence and musical ambitions. Later she was to serve as the managing director in the Hall between 2004 and 2009, before going on tour in the United States and Japan.

Her love affair with music began when she was just nine years old and discovered her singing voice with Somewhere over the Rainbow, which was immortalised by Judy Garland in the film The Wizard of Oz.

Later influences included the likes of Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell and Suzanne Vega, but Breathe & Begin is pure Liz Rogers; the voice so loved by community members describing her unique journey to a place where she today finds greater peace and acceptance of whatever transpires. Many will identify with Small Town in Highland Clime, her most recent composition, which she describes as a love song to Findhorn itself.

Now she’s planning to head for West Massachusetts where her gypsy heart hopes to find a piece of land where she can run her fingers through the earth and be close to nature, combining her work as a craniosacral therapist with the pursuit of her musical career.

We wish her joy and wonderful new adventures. Visit www.elizabethrogers.com.

Geoff Dalglish