Suzzy and Maggie Roche have been singing together for most of their lives. Together with sister Terre, they formed The Roches and recorded ten albums, performing all over the US and Europe for over twenty years. The New York Times named their debut, The Roches, “Album of the Year” and they were hailed as the “Best Vocal Group” by the New York Music Awards. Will You Be My Friend, a recording of songs for children of all ages, was given “The Parent’s Choice Gold Award” and their Christmas recording, We Three Kings, has become a classic. They have recorded and written music for movies and TV . . . including their own episode of Steven Spielberg’s Tiny Toons and the score for the 1988 film Crossing Delancey. They have performed and recorded with Philip Glass, Paul Simon and The Indigo Girls and have appeared on Oprah Winfrey, Saturday Night Live, The Tonight Show, Late Night with David Letterman and The Dick Cavett Show.
Suzzy has recorded two solo projects released on Red House Records, Holy Smokes and Songs from an Unmarried Housewife & Mother, Greenwich Village, USA (named “Album of the Week” by The New York Times). Suzzy has also performed with the infamous Wooster Group throughout Europe and in New York City and she starred opposite Amy Irving in Crossing Delancey.
In January of 2002, Maggie & Suzzy released the critically acclaimed CD Zero Church, an unusual collection of prayers set to music. Zero Church was the result of work they began at The Institute On The Arts & Civic Dialogue, founded by Anna Deavere Smith and Harvard University. Guest artists included siblings Terre & David Roche, Dr. Ysaye Barnwell of Sweet Honey In The Rock, Lynette DuPree who starred in the Broadway hit Bring In Da Noise, Bring In Da Funk and Ruben Martinez, journalist and author of Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail.
Their 2004 Red House release, Why the Long Face features the Roches striking harmonies and singular songwriting. The album focuses on what Suzzy describes as the “ever thinning line between opposites: comedy & tragedy, hope & despair, the political & the personal, the truth & the lie, success & failure, the simple & complex – just to name a few.”