Meet the Musicians: Roberta Hansen Downey

By Leilani Polk

Among the Seattle Symphony’s longest playing members is Cello Roberta Hansen Downey, who joined the orchestra in 1982 under late Music Director Rainer Miedél. Her parents were both keyboard players; her mom, a pianist and educator at Seattle Central Community College, her dad resident organist with the Seattle Symphony (1959–1969), the organist and choir director at Plymouth Congregational Church (1957–1991) and a professor at University of Puget Sound (1970–1993). Roberta started on piano but picked up cello in fourth grade. 

She hasn’t gotten nervous about performing since high school, when she played her first concerto — “I realized that nerves are a state of mind” — and to this day, she doesn’t get too flustered performing new pieces of music with the orchestra. Instead, she applies the same methodology she used to win her audition with the Symphony: meticulous mental and physical preparation. “The last thing I did at night was play the most difficult music very carefully. And first thing the next morning, I’d practice those difficult passages again.” The idea was that her mind would work on it while she was sleeping. “I must have done it right because when I went to that audition, I stepped out of my own way and let it happen.” 

She’s experienced many unforgettable moments with the orchestra over the years, from performing the music of John Williams, with Williams himself conducting and Steven Spielberg making a surprise appearance, to tackling Messiaen’s Turangalîla-symphonie with Judith Fong Conductor Emeritus Ludovic Morlot. “That was one of the most challenging things we’ve done. And it was super cool.” 

She is also a frequent participant in the orchestra’s Chamber Series — she leads a performance of Ruth Gipps’ Quintet for Oboe, Clarinet and String Trio on April 7 — and plays in various chamber groups around Washington, including joining friends to play for retirement homes. She also performs with the Bellingham Chamber Music Society and around J.S. Bach's birthday, helps put together the annual Bach Suite Marathon, where “a bunch of cellists get together and play through all the six Bach suites, tag team style.” This year it happens on March 21 at Haller Lake United Methodist Church. 

Roberta has picked up and set aside various hobbies over the years: beekeeping (“It’s a lot of work and I don't eat that much honey, but it’s fun”), raising Runner ducks, making mead and wine. She seems to be a natural nurturer, with six chickens (though she’s had as many as 10 in her 15 years of keeping them), veggie gardens and berries, and many different kinds of apple trees on her near-acre Haller Lake property, including a recently rescued apple tree of unknown species. “The neighbors were going to cut it down, but it was small enough that I decided to transplant it. And it’s doing fine!”  

She grows peas, beans and tomatoes, potatoes, garlic, leeks, lettuce and kale, and lots of berries. “I have eight blueberry bushes and a raspberry bed. My husband’s been nurturing a blackberry bush, one in our yard that had huge blackberries, to keep it from going wild. He put a tomato cage on it to keep it enclosed, and now we have a blackberry topiary.” She just planted new beds with marionberry (from Viola Daniel Stone) and black raspberry, and she also has a grape arbor, its yield good for eating and making raisins. 

Roberta also picked up acoustic bass a few years ago. “I’ve been learning Brazilian Choro. I’m not very good at it, but I have a good time.”