![Julie Rosenfeld, an associate professor at the University of Missouri School of Music, stands in her office on Wednesday, May 15, 2024, at the Fine Arts Building in Columbia. “When I was coming out in the 80s, and 90s, I mean, that's what would you called women who were [attracted to the] same sex. You called them lesbians. And, I mean, I love Sappho, the Isle of Lesbos. I thought it was a really great term, as a matter of fact. I liked the term. I thought it was a great way to identify. You know, ‘Jewish, lesbian, violinist.’ Sounds great to me. So, I never shied away from it,” Rosenfeld said. “I'm a baker also. So, ‘Jewish, lesbian, violinist, baker. All those things are important to me. But, I like the term. I think it's a great term. Were that we all were like Sappho.”](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/9f68677/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1750x1164+0+0/resize/840x558!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F91%2Fb4%2Fa5b0e316435388adde92690d1f29%2F20240515-bas-queer-joy-julie-rosenfeld-0023.jpg)
Julie Rosenfeld describes herself as a “Jewish lesbian violinist baker.”
She spent much of her career working as a touring violinist in a string quartet and now teaches violin at the University of Missouri School of Music.
She spoke about how she met and fell in love with her quartet second violinist more than 40 years ago.
Alphabet Soup shares LGBTQ+ Missourians’ stories through portraiture and personal narratives.
Julie Rosenfeld: When I finished my master's degree at Yale. That's kind of the place where, “Oh,” you know, “am I gonna go back to school try to get a DMA [Doctor of Musical Arts], or am I gonna,” you know, “enter the world of music making.”
I had heard via the grapevine that there was a string quartet at the Juilliard School that was losing its first violinist, so I decided, “Okay, I'm gonna contact the second violinist,” who was the person who was advertising the vacancy.
"You know the joke about lesbians, you know? What does a lesbian bring on the second date? The moving van."
And she said, “Oh, definitely, come down, come down to New York. We'll play together. We'll hang out, see how we –” you know, a string quartet is much more just than just a musical group. It's a very close relationship among the four people.
So, I went down. Immediately, you know, loved making music with them, and felt a, I think, a very close connection with the second violinist.
And is very often the case, I think, with musical groups like this – I mean, look at some of the pop groups and things like that, where they find their mates for life.
And we found that. Just the second violin and I realized that we were very close in our outlook on life, and had very, very similar ideas musically, and by December of that year, we were couple.
And you know the joke about lesbians, you know? What does a lesbian bring on the second date? The moving van.
Laughter
So, yeah, it was fast, but it's been – hey, we've been married since, you know, basically we got together in December of 1983. God, that's a long time ago. So, it's like more than 40 years ago.
It's been a, you know, bumpy ride for sure. That's what happens when you're working and living together. There's never any time when you get away from each other, but it's been a wonderful relationship, and hopefully will last until one of us dies, I guess.
I guess I don't know if I would recommend that for everybody – you're working with this person, you get off of work and you go home with this person.
"A string quartet is much more just than just a musical group. It's a very close relationship among the four people."
I mean, it's obviously worked for us, but if I were giving a piece of advice to a younger person, I'd say, you know, “Widen your horizons a little bit. Go find yourself a, you know, rich sugar daddy or something because music is very non lucrative really.”
So, I would say it's hard, you know, being with someone that you both work and live with, but it's been great for us. I mean, I would never go back. I mean, I would not say we shouldn't have done that.
![Willow Wilson sits on a chair in her living room on Friday, April 5, 2024, at her apartment in Columbia. When Wilson was selecting her name, she said she originally had nearly 100 names to choose from on a Word document. For a while, Wilson said she almost committed to the name “Rumor” because it had a “cool, sultry” and “femme fatale” feel. “But I eventually settled on the Willow just because I think Willow Wilson is such a distinctive name,” Wilson said. “It's kind of like [a] Peter Parker, Clark Kent kind of vibe. … Not to sound too egotistical, but that is a very main character name, and I kind of liked that. And I liked that it was very earthy and crunchy and kind of, you know, hippie, a little bit. So, I think Willow was kind of like, where I was like, ‘Yeah, I like that: Willow Wilson.’ That definitely sounds like a lady who's about town and making the most of her life.”](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/7f71366/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1750x1158+0+0/resize/260x172!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F41%2F05%2F730cbb9e4211a4e6e37f185c7caf%2F20240405-bas-queer-joy-willow-wilson-0019.jpg)
