Musician soars through music (and sometimes a plane)

Special to the Green Valley News

Marya Giesy is most at home with her violin.

For years she was also very much at home in the skies in the single-engine general aviation Beechcraft Bonanza plane she owned with her late husband, Bob.

She has taught students to play the violin at the Jefferson Academy of Music, which she founded at Ohio State University in 1979, and she has taught people to fly.

Giesy has a doctorate in musical arts and was influenced by European violin professor Max Rostal, who she met through a music professor at Ohio State.

“Music came late in life, in my late 40s... I went to graduate school after my kids graduated college and left home,” she said.

Ohio State was considered “one of the nation’s most highly rated university music schools,” she said. But Giesy, 79, who worked with musically gifted pre-college students, said there was no program for them.

“I set up recital series, master classes and invited master artists,” she said. “The students became professionally sought-after.

“They were multi-ethnic; the talent came from such a variety of backgrounds.”

Jefferson Academy was named after her idol, Thomas Jefferson, who “liked chamber music,” Giesy said. “Now the academy brings music into schools in the Columbus, Ohio, area and continues to attract new talent.”

Giesy performs with the Valley Presbyterian Church choir, coaches and leads the Green Valley String Ensemble and plays with the Green Valley Chamber Music Society. She was also past concert master of the Catalina Chamber Orchestra and Civic Orchestra in Tucson.

“I have two violins. Bob made one of them. He worked with wood all his life and felt he could do this though he couldn’t play. He used tiger maple, ebony and spruce.”

While music was and still is a big part of Giesy’s life, so was her desire to fly.

She said though she always dreamed about it she never expected to do it; then she and her husband took lessons and became instrument and commercial pilots.

“I also became a flight instructor... I flew to Alaska once and flew solo in the Powder Puff Derby from Los Angeles to Savannah, Ga., in 1968,” she said as if was the most natural thing for her to do.

The challenge of what she’s doing musically continues to inspire Giesy. Reflecting on her professional accomplishments, she said she’s most proud of the music students she has worked with.

“That, and the growth in music my husband achieved in our 53 years. He wasn’t a musician, but it came to be one of his abiding joys.”

What gives her joy at this stage in life? “Getting out my violin and enjoying the best sound that comes out of it.

“And being a part of the music.”

Ellen Sussman is a freelance writer in Green Valley. Contact her at ellen2414@cox.net.