First-year Sterling College student Ruby Foster is pretty sure she was born singing, but when she was four years old, her passion for creating music and entertaining others was confirmed. “We were on a family vacation to Hollywood, California,” she said, “I stood on the sidewalk singing at the top of my lungs while waiting for my dad to pay our restaurant check. People threw money at me! I’ve known my whole life that I love to sing and want to make a profession from it.” On Friday night, February 26, Foster shared her budding profession with the Sterling community, singing her original compositions and accompanying herself on the keyboard at Broadway Market in downtown Sterling.

Foster began composing music when she was a sophomore in high school. She began performing her pieces for church and family that same year and gave her first coffee shop performance when she was 19 and a student at the Honor Academy in Texas. “I always hear a phrase in my thoughts with a tune already attached,” Foster said of her creative process. “My songs are inspired by experiences or thoughts I’ve had or am wrestling with.” One such song is “Eve’s Mark.” “Eve is my favorite character in the Bible. The world was not complete until she came…but then the destruction of the world came because of her.”

Songs like “Eve’s Mark” connected well with Foster’s audience on Friday night. She attributes some of that to the venue. “I loved how comfortable the environment was. It was such an intimate setting, more personal than typical performances.” Because of the intimacy, she could easily sense audience members’ reactions to her music. “‘The Fall’ and ‘Little Girl’ took the audience by surprise with their intensity, and ‘Ode to Dreamers’ got the best laughs. It’s a song about those of us who dream but don’t put legs to their dreams, so they sit unfinished. One of the lines is, ‘So he says he’s never been adrift at sea or seen the ocean, but he has a boat…”

SC student Joanne Williams was challenged by Foster’s music. “I remember ‘Eve’s Mark’ and ‘Starlight’ the most. Her songs about dreams are so inspirational. They make me feel like I can do anything.”

And Foster felt the same way about the concert. “My close friends and family were there, believing in me and encouraging this dream I have to be a recording artist and performer. It inspired me to keep racing to my dreams.”