Cosa Rosa

Rosemarie "Rosa" Precht (* May 3rd, 1952 ; † January 31st, 1991) was a German song-writer, singer and keyboard player. The studied architect worked at a big office in Berlin, but her main hobby was writing songs and playing her keyboard. In Berlin Rosa Precht met the music and sound engineer student Reinhold Heil with whom she became close friends in 1976. Heil grew out to be a key player in the Berlin popscene. Together with Herwig Mitteregger, Bernhard Potsch Potschka and Manfred Praeker (all three coming from Lokomotive Kreuzberg) he joined the Nina Hagen Band, later called Spliff when Nina Hagen left after two albums, and they had to sing themselves. It was Mitteregger who introduced Rosa to singer Ulla Meinecke in 1980. At this stage she just created her own band called the Insisters and was forced to choose between joining Ulla or not. She accepted and joined the band for three albums. The recordings of the Insisters were released in 1981. In 1982 she played to Reinhold some self penned songs. He was impressed and offered to start a side project together called "Cosa Rosa". Dubbed as a living room project the songs were simply made with keyboards, drum machines and synthesizers in the comfort of their home. The result was Traumstation, released in 1983 and much to their own surprise got good reviews and even a small hit with Rosa auf Hawaii. Because the project was never intended to be commercial and because the couple's commitment to Ulla Meinecke and Spliff there wasn't much room for promoting the album widely. The couple made two more albums, Kein Zufall in 1985 and Cosa Rosa in 1986 which featured the minor hitsingles Millionenmal and In meinen Armen. At the end of the eighties Rosa was diagnosed with cancer and had to retreat from public live. In January 1991 she died with Reinhold by her side. She was buried in the family grave in Benzen by Walsrode, Lower Saxony. In 2006 Sony BMG published the compilation Millionenmal. There is no official website, but Reinhold Heil edited the German Wikipedia article about Rosa Precht, so the facts should be corrrect. This article is mainly based on it and was translated and published on Europopmusic.eu. Since Oct 2008 there is a fan site in English as well.