Bach has been helping me get through the quarantine. During these unique months, I’ve spent a great deal of time cycling through the Violin Partitas/Sonatas as well as the Cello and Lute Suites, all of which lend themselves nicely to the marimba. There’s just something so comforting and meditative about Bach’s music. The movements are so complex, yet you can tell they are effortlessly written. His music invokes such an individual experience for both performer and listener, something you can count on for any mood you’re in. On the Bach half of this Friday’s program, my colleague Rob O’Brien in Omaha joins me to play three of our favorite Two-Part Inventions, the Gavotte from French Suite No.5, and part of Bach’s Violin Partita No. 1, which we’ll play in a way that is… definitely against some sort of rule.

Prior to our last piece, Nagoya Marimbas by the famous minimalist composer Steve Reich, we’ll perform two pieces by my grandfather, Arnold Mysior. I took a Samba he wrote in the ’50s for piano/voice, as well as his adaptation of At The River, and put them on marimbas. Mysior was a self-taught pianist who grew up in Poland, Palestine, & New York before enlisting in the Air Force, doing a bunch of cool counterespionage investigative stuff for nearly two decades (don’t know how he had the time to get freakishly good at piano). Constant travel didn’t make it easy for him to hone his creative passion, but he did study composition briefly with Vittorio Giannini at the Manhattan School of Music, and Roger Sessions at UC Berkeley. With dozens of his pieces in my possession, including many piano solos, I’ve also enjoyed a greater part of the summer learning these on ‘his’ piano, which I’m fortunate to now possess.

This extended time away from the concert stage and orchestra has been difficult. It’s weird to say, but I feel out of my comfort zone at home, trying to navigate the mysteries of internet connectivity, as well as camera and microphone settings to figure out how to optimally share music via a computer screen. My own projects have made me realize how much I miss collaborating with other musicians, and getting this opportunity to play duets with my super talented friend Rob, from 1,700 miles away, is a joyful feeling. When Ron Blessinger first called me about the idea of performing on the live concert series, being the skeptic I am, I asked him about 10 possible things that could go wrong during a live internet performance, to which he replied: “Oh yeah, those have all happened already, so much could go wrong!” I loved the enthusiasm in his answer.

Thanks to the guru, Danny Rosenberg, the spectral presence on the other side of the computer screen who makes this all happen! His vision and ability, to offer a platform to perform live with a colleague in a distant location, truly fills me with excitement, as I’m sure it has all the performers thus far!

Michael Roberts
Principal Percussion, Oregon Symphony