Long ago, Lisa Ostrow stopped counting the occasions when she has patiently explained, “yes, I can do that,” and subsequently reached a milestone others assumed insurmountable: “a totally blind person can’t hike the rugged, 45-mile West Coast Trail.” “Harvard’s Russian Department has never graduated a blind student.” “How could you possibly enjoy an African safari?” Barriers are not her concern; she enriches her life, family and friends on her own terms, and through her music.
Born in Colorado Springs, Colorado, to Canadian parents, Lisa has dual US/Canadian citizenship and also lived in Nova Scotia, Manitoba and British Columbia before attending college in Boston, where she has remained since 1984 and grown a family of her own. Today she is a full-time mother and active performing artist, and is proud to be releasing her first album with Unconditional.
Music was destined to play a significant role in Lisa’s life journey. Her father spent 35 years in the Canadian Armed Forces, Music Branch, rising from enlisted private to commissioned major, as a clarinetist, commanding officer and finally as the branch’s 2 executive. At the age of seven, Lisa began the study of piano, and at ten, began intensive training with the Royal Conservatory of Music, advancing through their rigorous program at an accelerated pace, performing in a wide variety of live venues and television broadcasts, and winning awards and recognition throughout the Maritime Provinces and Western Canada. As the first member of her family to attend university, Lisa aimed high and was accepted to Harvard, where she earned a Cum Laude degree in Slavic Languages and Literatures. Musically, her focus in college migrated to vocal performance. She sang with the renowned Harvard Collegium Musicum chorus, including as a soloist in Boston's Symphony Hall; with the a cappella group The Radcliffe Pitches, Lisa performed in a wide variety of venues including a tour to Bermuda. She also fronted a Top 40 dance band, and made a guest appearance as a featured soloist with the Naden Band at the Royal Theater in Victoria, British Columbia.
After college, Lisa married and settled in the Boston area, managing production at the National Braille Press until 1994, when her second child turned out to be twins. Full-time motherhood beckoned and ever since, she has nurtured the wide array of vocal, instrumental, drama and dance pursuits of her three daughters, now teenagers. While this next generation of talent has thus far performed in Disney World and at Boston’s Colonial Theater in the national Broadway tour of "Evita,” Lisa continues to appear in regional theater productions, primarily as a vocalist, in genres ranging from Gilbert & Sullivan to Christmas-season jazz.
Unconditional is literally a labor of love, with backing vocals on selected tracks provided by Lisa’s husband and all her children. Lisa’s arranger and co-producer, Patrick Dreier, contributes additional vocals along with those of his own daughters, and his instrumental contributions are many. Unconditional’s 15-track collection includes a variety of musical styles, is supported by numerous exceptional musicians from Boston and Rhode Island, and will generate net profits donated to the Polycystic Kidney Disease Foundation.
