Roanoke County trombonist serenades his stay-at-home neighbors.
On a picture perfect Saturday, with the redbuds and phlox and tulips in bloom, two dozen residents in the Bridlewood subdivision of Southwest Roanoke County space themselves strategically across a wide, winding intersection.
Some wear masks. Some walk with their dogs. A few bring chairs. Others stand. They chat from a safe distance, complimenting each others’ landscaping, catching up on all they’ve missed since they last gathered.
Wordlessly, Ed Griffin emerges from his dark-wood home set back from the street by a steep bank. He raises his trombone — an instrument he first picked up when he was eight years old —and sounds a series of sonorous notes.
“It’s five o’clock,” says Ken Briggs, unofficial manager of this unlikeliest of performances and an across-the-street neighbor to Griffin.
The crowd quiets and the piece plays on.
This is the third Saturday concert Griffin has performed from his porch. He’s planning a fourth this week. He says he’ll show up every Saturday while he and his neighbors are under a stay-at-home order — as long as the weather is nice and he is able.
He’s started every set with Amazing Grace.
His ad hoc audience applauds. Griffin lifts the shiny brass to his lips and begins anew.
He plays America the Beautiful. God Bless America. Danny Boy. The Christian hymn, Be Thou My Vision. Somewhere Over the Rainbow.
It’s not only the houses near Griffin’s that listen. His tunes travel through the warm air, touching neighbors down the hills and around the bends. Some know to sit on porches and soak up the sounds each Saturday. Others catch a surprise snatch of a familiar score as they grill or garden or relax on their decks.
The neighbors say that having Griffin share his gift feels like a generous act at a time when connecting with others is, in so many ways, taboo.
“It’s just nice to sort of see people again,” says Margaret Beazley, a longtime Bridlewood resident. “Ed is such a great musician. I’m glad he’s willing to brighten our day at this time.”
Griffin insists he is the recipient, not the giver.
“It’s an absolute blessing to me that you all come,” he says to those lingering after his solos. “It gives me something to look forward to all week.”
Griffin has lived in his house on a hill since the 1980s, when he moved to Roanoke to take a job at ITT. There, he rose to vice president of engineering, he says, before he left the company in 2005. Alongside his work as a physicist Griffin has played in a variety of music groups, the highlight being the decades he played trombone with Brass5, one of the top concert quintets in the Mid-Atlantic. They’ve performed more than 4,000 engagements over the last 30 years, according to their website.
But the last few years have been hard for Griffin, 72. He’s fought recurring battles with cancer. He lost his father in January. Now, like everyone, he is mostly confined to his home as the novel coronavirus sweeps the globe.
These tiny porch concerts —the first week, he played two songs, the next week four, and then six, plus an encore — mean that Griffin gets to take the stage, pump his breath through brass, hear the notes waft away. Preparing for them gives shape to his daily hourlong practices. The planning, he says, gives him purpose.
The performances provide his neighbors permission to do what once came naturally and now seems so hard: gather at the edges of yards, wave at lifelong friends, laugh and joke, see faces other than those in their households.
“It’s a very nice way to end a Saturday,” says Beazley, shielding her eyes from the lowering sun.
About the Writer:
Christina Nifong is a writer with a decades-long career profiling interesting people, places and ideas. She’s recently launched a new email newsletter focused on life in the slow lane, called Nourishing Stories. Sign up and find more of her work at christinanifong.com.
