Evanston RoundTable, Nov. 27, 2025
At an age when most people are dreading the Grim Reaper, Gloria Boyell says the only thing she’s afraid of is being bored.
No chance of that.
She turns 99 on Nov. 29, and she doesn’t have time to worry about dying — she’s too busy.
Boyell recently retired after 53 years playing violin in the Evanston Symphony to devote more time to playing the piano, her first love, in her gracious North Shore home. She’s working on the Israeli-American composer Paul Schoenfield’s Café Music, which she describes as “classical jazz,” and the Mozart piano quartets, hoping to rustle up three other players to join her.
She received a bachelor’s and master’s degree in piano performance at Northwestern University, and raised her two children in southeast Evanston from 1956 to 1972.
She has taught piano in her home over the past 25 years to more than 180 students. One of them, Shane Simpson, records and composes music and performs frequently.
In addition to her music, she reads every day, and cited James McBride’s memoir The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother as a recent favorite. She watches PBS nightly, preferring documentaries and English mysteries. “But sometimes I fall asleep and don’t find out who did it. That’s what happens at 99,” she says, laughing.
She speaks regularly with friends and her two children and two grandchildren. Her 32-year-old grandson phones every week.
She’s still physically active as well — more so than most people half her age. She walks twice a day most days and in the summer swims almost daily in Lake Michigan. Up until a few years ago she cross-country skied when there was snow and rode her bike when the weather was nice.
She remains active with the Savoyaires, Evanston’s resident Gilbert & Sullivan company, where she started playing in 1976. She only recently quit the pit orchestra but continues to help recruit players for the annual two-week fall residency at Chute School. She has served as the rehearsal pianist, board president and treasurer.
“I’ve been very privileged to work closely with Gloria in the Savoyaires for many years,” board member and frequent soloist and director Kingsley Day told me when I wrote about Boyell after her 90th birthday.
“She is a treasure. I can’t say enough about her terrific musicianship, her expert piano playing, and her boundless good nature and good sense. And fortunately for all of us, she’s like the energizer bunny — she just keeps going and going. If only we could all age like she does.”
He added recently, “It’s even truer today.”
Asked her secret to longevity, Boyell replies simply, “Continual movement.”
“I’m lucky I can accept things, things that happen at the age of 99, that I have to give up, things that hurt the body, that hurt the mind, like envy, greed, regret, anger. All those emotions I have been able to put behind me. I don’t let them bother me. I’m not fearful, I’m optimistic.”
She can even joke about dying. She told her son, who lives out east but will join her for Thanksgiving and her birthday. “I bet you’re coming back because your wife told you not to wait too long.”
In the 2017 story I wrote about Boyell, she said, “I have no words of wisdom, except to stay active and positive.”
For sure.