On Oct. 19, the Friends of the Palisades Library will host Palisadian Fran Morris-Rosman, executive director of the Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation, who is having a busy year celebrating the 100th anniversary of the singer’s birth.
Morris-Rosman will offer a free program in which she talks about Fitzgerald’s life and shows video clips of Ella performing. The event will begin at 6:30 p.m. in the Library’s community room on Alma Real.
Ella Fitzgerald, The First Lady of Song, created and funded her Palisades-based foundation in 1993, “in order to fulfill her desires to use the fruits of her success to help people of all races, cultures and beliefs. Ella hoped to make their lives more rewarding, and she wanted to foster a love of reading, as well as a love of music. In addition, she hoped to provide assistance to the at-risk and disadvantaged members of our communities—assistance that would enable them to achieve a better quality of life,” according to the foundation’s website.
Morris-Rosman, a jazz archivist, is a graduate of UC Irvine and the Graduate Library School of the University of Chicago. Her husband Richard Rosman, a business attorney, is president and chairman of the Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation. They are also active West Coast supporters of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.
You must be logged in to post a comment.