Cellist Joshua Roman’s journey from long COVID back to the stage
Cellist Joshua Roman had a singular focus: being a perfect empty vessel for the music. But when long COVID forced him to face his limits, he rediscovered his love for playing the cello.
About Joshua Roman
Joshua Roman is a composer and cello soloist who has performed with leading orchestras around the world, including Los Angeles Philharmonic, New World Symphony, Toronto Symphony and Mariinsky Symphony Orchestra.
Before his career as a soloist, Roman joined the Seattle Symphony as their principal cellist in 2006. At 22 , he was the youngest musician to hold that role.
Roman’s solo album, Immunity, was released in 2024.
This segment of TED Radio Hour was produced by Matthew Cloutier and edited by Sanaz Meshkinpour. You can follow us on Facebook @TEDRadioHour and email us at [email protected].
Web Resources
Related TED Talk: Why do you love your favorite songs?
Related TED Talk: A sonic journey through the universe
Related TED Playlist: The magic of the human voice
Related NPR Links
TED Radio Hour: Soundtracks of our lives
NPR Music: Before they were 2025 Grammy Award winners, they were Tiny Desk performers
All Things Considered: Three albums in 3 months? No sweat for violinist Anne Akiko Meyers
Outage at Amazon Web Services disrupts websites across the internet
Amazon's cloud computing service provides back-end support to many companies that operate online. When it has problems, so do they.
Hollywood pushes OpenAI for consent
The latest version of OpenAI's Sora can quickly turn text prompts and simple images into studio quality videos, which left the entertainment industry deeply uneasy.
9th Circuit rules that National Guard can deploy to Portland
The appeals court overturned the ruling of a lower court judge in Oregon, and clears the way for President Trump to deploy the National Guard to Portland.
This isn’t the Louvre’s first high-profile heist. Here’s a history of earlier thefts
Masked thieves stole priceless jewels from the Louvre on Sunday morning. The Paris museum has suffered a string of successful art heists, dating back to the theft of the Mona Lisa in 1911.
Trump’s fake video featured ‘Danger Zone.’ Musician Kenny Loggins wants it scrubbed
The "Danger Zone" singer is asking for his performance to be deleted from a fake "King Trump" video that the president posted to Truth Social on Saturday.
Cannabis works better than opioids for back pain, in two European studies
Millions of Americans use weed to treat chronic pain, but there's little high quality research on whether it works. New findings suggest it can be effective for low back pain, on par with opioids.
