Rosenstolz singer Anna R.: Unmistakable vocals and clear attitude

She once celebrated success with the band Rosenstolz, now the Berlin musician Anna R. is dead. The singer, born as Andrea Rosenbaum, died suddenly and unexpectedly at the age of 55, as relatives announced on Instagram.

Rosenstolz was a pop duo with a lot of fans. The band was active in the 1990s and early 2000s. In addition to Anna R., the composer Peter Plate was one of them.

“I will miss you every second,” said Plate. “Only two weeks ago I wrote to you, congratulated you on your new job as a poetics lecturer – and delighted me from the bottom of my heart. You would have done that great! In general, you were full of anticipation for everything that should come. Maybe that’s a little consolation.”

The two were first favorites of subculture, later they conquered the mass market, won echoes, gold and platinum. Popchlager anthems like “Give me sun” and “I am (we are)” shaped the sound of the nuller years.

At Rosenstolz, many also think of the melancholic hit “Love is everything” from 2004. Fans sang from the first to the last song at the concerts. The then ruling mayor of Berlin, Klaus Wowereit, frolicked in the audience.

Anna R. was born in East Berlin in 1969 and once trained as a chemical laboratory. The history of the band Rosenstolz started in the early 1990s.

Plate now wrote: “I will never forget our first evening together. We drank sparkling wine, you told me that you wanted to be a jazz singer, and I wanted to make pop music. We went to me the same night and took a song – I was enthusiastic about your voice to sing from your kind, from your gift to wrap each of our songs into the beautiful colors.”

Between 1991 and the preliminary end of the collaboration in 2012, Anna R. and the songwriter Plate played twelve albums. Her most successful album “The Great Life” came out in 2006.

After her time at Rosenstolz, the singer was active at the bands Gleis 8 and Silly. In 2023 she published the solo album “König: in”. A few weeks ago, she had promoted Instagram for her “courage to love” tour, which was to start this October.

Her songs were often about love, but Anna R. was also politically active. In 2011 she received the Federal Cross of Merit together with her band colleague Plate for her commitment to AIDS. On her solo album, she sings about migrants in the track “Sea full of souls” who flee in boats.

In an interview, she said in 2023: “I really think that we should be ashamed. That there are discussions about whether you help fleeing people on boats, accept them on land or not. That they are brought into overcrowded camps. These people have fled because they did not want to live in war. Incredible that it is mercilessly overwhelmed.”

In the interview of the magazine “Coolibri”, the musician was also asked whether her legacy as a rose cup singer triggered pressure from her. “Mein,” she replied. “It was 30 years of my life, 20 of them. Every now and then there is a rose stump topic. For most part, it was also a good year. It just annoys to be reduced.

Anna R. not only shaped the sound of Rosenstolz with her unmistakable vocals. “There are voices, you hear that, and they are burning in memory, whether you want or not. Anna R. has such a voice. Hell, powerful, melancholic,” wrote the “Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin” once about them.

“The sudden, unexpected end of life of our girlfriend and” king: in “shocked and confused us deeply,” said the post on the musician’s Instagram page.

“With her unique voice, her presence and her songs, she has remained a constant attendant for countless people since Rosenstolz was founded. She still had many music plans when she died in Berlin at the age of 55.