In 2025, NWAG lost two dear friends. Despite living in Cambridge, MA, Robert Grappel and his wife, Lynda Cohen, regularly attended and contributed to our Gathering as patrons, teachers, performers, advisors and friends. Robert served on the NWAG planning committee for five years, where he gave generously of his time and skills. No matter how well we thought we knew them, we were continually amazed at the variety of their interests and knowledge.
Before immersing himself in the autoharp life, Bob earned advanced degrees in academics and computer science and was a senior staff member for the Air Traffic Surveillance Group at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory, where he held several patents. In so many ways, he was a true Renaissance man; gifted academic, computer systems engineer, published poet, philosopher, musician, recording artist, tutor, instructor, performer, and jam mate. He most recently volunteered his skills in researching, collecting, collating, and writing the considerable history of the Mountain Laurel Autoharp Gathering in an entertaining publication titled “History of a Gathering.”
Lynda, in her own rite, was an accomplished singer and actor, spending years performing with her synagogue choir. She also spoke French and was a talented chef. She founded the Lynda Cohen Performing Arts Series—promoting talented musicians and her love of the outdoors in cooperation with the Appalachian Mountain Club in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire.
Together, Bob and Lynda traveled the country and the open seas playing and enjoying every corner of our autoharp community. They were deeply involved with festivals across the country as participants, organizers, sponsors, workshop leaders, contest competitors, or open stage performers. Bob regularly contributed classical (and other) music articles to the Autoharp Quarterly. They directed philanthropic contributions wherever they saw a need and instituted the Lynda Cohen & Robert Grappel Recording Endowment–generously underwriting the expense of preparing, recording, and releasing initial albums for promising autoharp artists.
Bob entertained audiences with impressive and technically difficult pieces and was a Mountain Laurel Autoharp Gathering (MLAG) finalist twice. He and Lynda were two-time winners of MLAG’s Leonard Reid Open Stage Performance award. They had one CD together, featuring a wide variety of music and styles, including classical, Broadway, folk, brass band, and Celtic. Bob also released a solo CD.
We were lucky to have known these two talented and accomplished contributors to the arts. Unfailingly thoughtful and generous, patient listeners in conversation, and lovely, gentle and intelligent friends, Robert Grappel and Lynda Cohen leave a lasting imprint and we miss them terribly.