In life, cellist Jean Goodfellow loved gathering friends around her.
Now, five years after her death, friends will remember Goodfellow and her late husband, Harry, with a special July 13 concert by Bainbridge musicians.
“It’s a real reunion,” said cellist Barbara Deppe, a longtime friend of Goodfellow. “There are people playing in this concert who had sort of drifted apart because of busy lives, but they’ve made a point of coming back for this.”
Besides reuniting old friends, the concert replenishes an anonymous gift to the Bainbridge Orchestra made in the Goodfellows’ name shortly after Jean’s death in 1998.
The program includes a trio sonata by J.B. Loeillet, an 18th century English composer, that features one of Goodfellow’s favorite instruments, the harpsichord. The sheet music for the piece was a gift from Goodfellow to flutist Pat Smith, and the pair often played it.
The heart of the program, Bainbridge Orchestra director Sandi Schwarz says, is the memorial work, Edward Elgar’s “Elegy for Strings,” Opus 58, of 1909.
Deppe, a Winslow massage therapist who joins the orchestra for Sunday’s performance, remembers Goodfellow near the end of her life.
“While I was giving her massages at the hospital, I got to hear some stories I’d never heard before,” she said, “like meeting Harry and coming back from Europe during World War II.”
Born Jean Colwell in 1922, the young musician graduated from Seattle’s Busch School and then studied cello in Europe.
She was a student of Pablo Casals and Nadia Boulanger in Paris when war broke out. She sailed from England as the Germans invaded France, a dramatic trans-Atlantic crossing with the ship’s lights blacked out and German subs on the prowl.
Jean married Harry Goodfellow in 1944, and two years later the couple moved to Bainbridge.
“When she moved to the island she moved to the south end, to Beans Bight Road,” Amy Duerr-Day said. “Her mother was just horrified. She considered it ‘the slums of Bainbridge.’”
Harry Goodfellow was a banker, and a touch more reserved than his spouse, but the couple took to island life with enthusiasm.
Jean pursued outdoor sports and the arts. Equally proficient at knitting and marksmanship, she played not only cello, but piano, harpsichord, recorder, Krumhorn and viola da gamba.
Besides playing cello for the Bainbridge Orchestra, Goodfellow performed with other music groups, including the Eagle Harbor String Quartet, the Bainbridge Quartet, the Bainbridge Island String Ensemble and the Bremerton Symphony Orchestra.
Kathy Connelly, Smith, Duerr-Day and Deppe carpooled with her for years to Bremerton.
“We rode in her Volvo station wagon,” Smith said. “We somehow fit all of us plus a string bass, a cello, an oboe and a flute.”
“She was a very wise and accomplished woman,” Duerr-Day said. “She was very quiet and modest about the accomplishments, the knowledge she had accumulated.”
Numerous on- and off-island organizations received her support, as did her many friends.
Goodfellow eased the way back into music for more than one lapsed performer. She encouraged Connelly, who had put down the viola for years after a traumatic performing experience, and served as a musical mentor for Deppe.
“She was just incredibly warm and gentle,” Deppe said, “and welcoming and encouraging for someone like me who was coming back into music after not playing for a decade, basically.
“She was a friend and a cellist, and an incredible woman.”
* * * * *
A Midsummer Musical Reunion in Memory of Jean and Harry Goodfellow is at 4:30 p.m. July 13 at the Playhouse. Tickets are $12.
