Since he started taking part in cello at 3, Joshua Roman’s expertise has taken him from his hometown of Mustang, Okla., to live performance halls everywhere in the world.
He was the youngest principal cellist of the Seattle Symphony, at 22, and has been a soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and lots of different orchestras. His day by day routine typically included 10 hours of taking part in, together with a six-mile run.
Then, on Jan. 9, 2021, in Jacksonville, Fla., the morning after performing Prokofiev’s Symphony-Concerto, a bit he loves for its “big sections of flashy, virtuosic pleasure,” the whole lot modified. He awoke and located he couldn’t odor his toothpaste. Later that day, he examined constructive for Covid.
He was solely 37 years outdated, however he felt excessive fatigue, as if “sporting a coat of encumbered steel inside my physique.” It could be a month earlier than he had sufficient vitality to fly house to Manhattan. He was so weak that he acquired caught on a staircase touchdown, crying till he managed to crawl up the remainder of the steps.
Finally, most excruciating of all, he misplaced the stamina to play his cello for almost three months.
“I simply let it sit actually amassing mud.”
