Perhaps you’ve heard Anna Rose’s soulful, powerful, captivating music. Her Nashville fans might describe her as an outlaw country singer/songwriter, while others might say her music leans towards alternative country industrial. Her roots are a bit of Led Zeppelin rock with influences by Muddy Waters, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and other jazz greats and additional inspiration from the likes of Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Warren Zevon, Sheryl Crow, and Fleetwood Mac. She would prefer not to be lumped into any genre but rather be known as a storyteller who writes great songs.

Anna grew up in North Salem, New York, with parents famously known for their creative pursuits: dad Alan Menken, an Oscar-winning Disney composer, and mom Janis, a celebrated dancer. As a ninth grader at Rippowam Cisqua, a day school, Anna was hesitant about the idea of moving on to a boarding high school, where classes met six days a week. She was dancing every day after school, playing piano and guitar (she started playing at the age of two and five respectively), and riding horses at home, but she came for a tour because Millbrook was still close enough to home for comfort. 

On her Millbrook tour she met Émilie Richard-Froozan ’03, who instantly put her at ease. To this day, Émilie and several other Millbrook classmates remain her closest friends. Anna reflects fondly on her three years at Millbrook and credits two teachers, Bill Hardy and Walker Zeiser, especially, with encouraging self-expression and empathy. They taught Anna and other students to question what they read and what the art they were studying represented, to consider biases and why they enjoyed certain artworks or books by certain authors. 

“I was asked, ‘Why?’ a lot, which was a big part of why Millbrook was so special. I very much developed my individual point of view here.” Having studied ballet and modern dance from a young age, Anna continued dancing as a creative outlet, and this performance art, not singing, was her chosen form of self-expression at Millbrook. “For me, it was equal parts athleticism and artistry, and I think that’s where I really found a lot of joy in it.” While Anna expressed herself more publicly then through dance, she was at the same time, more privately, writing music and playing her songs in the practice rooms in the Holbrook Arts Center or for her closest friends.