Mary-Louise de Rosset Rhodes

Mary-Louise de Rosset Rhodes is currently director of Community Relations for Focustar Consulting. At the same time, she is keeping up her long-time vocation as concert pianist, teaching noteworthy piano students at her home studio. A guest organist at local churches, she also enjoys serving as a musical audition judge. Often, she performs as a guest musician at charitable events and patron “openings.”

A longtime resident of Wilmington, Mary-Louise has been active in the cultural, arts and musical community. A past president and currently board member of the Thursday Morning Music Club, she is an audition judge for the Music Club’s scholarships for talented Wilmington junior and senior students. She has been a featured performer in the Junior League Follies. In the past, she was a frequent accompanist for musical reviews performed at Thalian Hall.

Music credentials: Born and raised in New York, she attended Todhunter School where she first developed her love of the piano, studying under the legendary Madame Bertha Svencenski. As part of her graduation recital from Ashley Hall in Charleston, she was one of the first pianists to premier the South American composer Octavio Pinto’s musical vignettes Childhood Scenes.

She attended Juilliard School of Music, New York, where she studied with the renowned concert pianist Muriel Kerr. Following Juilliard, she played as guest artist for the National Broadcasting Company before touring the country as soloist and artist-accompanist for a featured ballerina. While living in Phoenix, Arizona, she was piano accompanist for the famous Lindreen School of Ballet.

Recitals and concerts: Recently, Mary-Louise gave a recital in Seattle, accompanying an internationally renowned concert violinist. During a recent European tour, her spontaneous engagements included performing at diverse halls like the Alla del Bra in the Roman catacombs in Verona, Laguna Azur in Marmaris, Turkey, and an afternoon classical piano recital at Le Tire Bouchan in Paris’s Montmartre district.

She has performed on the Queen Elizabeth II at a command recital for the classically trained ship’s captain, also recently in the salon of the Caracas Hilton in Venezuela. While attending the closing week concert at Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan, she was invited to play a brief program at the new Piano and Percussion facility.

Her clubs include the Carolina Yacht Club and a charter membership in the City Club de Rosset, now housed in the historic home of her great-grandparents.

Professionally, Mary-Louise is an accredited member of the Music Teachers National Association as well as a member of the local chapter of MTNA.