A Virtuoso Cellist’s Painstaking Path From Long Covid Back to the Stage

For over three years, long Covid has presented Joshua Roman with health challenges — and has indelibly shaped the music he makes.

Since he began playing cello at 3, Joshua Roman’s talent has taken him from his hometown of Mustang, Okla., to concert halls all over 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 many other orchestras. His daily routine often included 10 hours of playing, along with a six-mile run.

Then, on Jan. 9, 2021, in Jacksonville, Fla., the morning after performing Prokofiev’s Symphony-Concerto, a piece he loves for its “giant sections of flashy, virtuosic excitement,” everything changed. He woke up and found he couldn’t smell his toothpaste. Later that day, he tested positive for Covid.

He was only 37 years old, but he felt extreme fatigue, as if “wearing a coat of weighted down metal inside my body.” It would be a month before he had enough energy to fly home to Manhattan. He was so weak that he got stuck on a staircase landing, crying until he managed to crawl up the rest of the steps.

Eventually, most excruciating of all, he lost the stamina to play his cello for nearly three months.

“I just let it sit literally collecting dust.”