The blithe and highly musical swarm of “fellows” — 137, chosen from more than 1,500 applications — and faculty had yet to arrive on the lavish Miraflores estate, home to the Music Academy of the West. But the annual Gala night on Saturday, June 1, marked the ceremonial opening night of the dense summer season. In keeping with the gala tradition, the fundraising event was duly outfitted with fine dining and custom cocktails for a well-dressed cadre of revelers (and a slightly frumpy journalist), taking in a spread designated with an Italian villa theme this year.
Another distinction with this 77th annual festival is its status as “A New Era,” with the anointing of a new Academy head, Shauna Quill, after the departure of longtime President and CEO Scott Reed last year. The musical menu also accounted for special consideration, from the ghostly Steinway digital “player piano” serenade, to the very real, real-time mandolin stylings (Italian style) of the inherently versatile Ashley Hoyer on the grounds. Hoyer showed up again before the official dinner bell, performing “Deh, vieni alla finestra” from Mozart’s Don Giovanni, joining Academy alum cellist Chas Barnard in accompanying baritone Byron J. Mayes.
But the real centerpiece of the evening’s musical menu arrived in the inviting space of Hahn Hall via a mini-recital by Joshua Roman. A proud Academy alum (2002) and a respected cellist with a broad, adventurous musical perspective, which he also brings to his teaching at Juilliard, Roman was dubbed by Yo-Yo Ma as “one of the great cellists of the 21st century.”
We’ve heard Roman here before, along his career’s path, but what came as a surprise to many was his challenging struggle with “long COVID,” contracted in 2021 and debilitating enough that he suffered fears of never playing cello again. As he told the audience in his frank comments about his ongoing struggle, “adapting to my new reality was not very graceful. I lost hope that it mattered.”
For three months, he avoided the cello, but he returned to his lifelong expressive tool with the timelessly moving strains of Bach’s Prelude No. 1 from the Cello Suites No. 1, which served as a fitting opening for his Hahn Hall performance. “This is how a cellist says hello,” he commented about the landmark Bach piece. Roman’s recital-ette continued in unexpected directions, with his genre-crossing post-COVID composition Immunity —fueled by his own improvisational explorations — and a vocal/cello rendering of the Leonard Cohen classic “Hallelujah.”
Roman spoke about the vulnerability he felt by speaking freely about an affliction suffered, often in silence and misunderstanding, by many. His situation has also led him to question the built-in values of classical music-making, in which “mistakes don’t belong on stage,” and said that he has reconsidered an approach which “emphasizes perfection over expression.”
After his performance, Quill came on stage for a brief conversation, pressing Roman for memories of his time at the Academy, 22 years ago. “It was a great summer,” Roman said. “It was the first time I was performing every day, and in one of the most beautiful places on Earth. It was also the first time I experienced this sense of a work/life balance.”
Work/life balancing has become an ever more pressing concern for Roman, whose transformative new attitude promises to usher in fresh ideas from his artistic world. Amid the sumptuous ingestibles, libations, and other gala accouterments on this evening, it was Roman’s special spotlight that left the strongest impression at the 2024 Gala. Now comes the nearly two-month-long musical feast.
