In one of the most surprising events of my life, the Offbeats got to participate in the amazingly uplifting show at the 2026 Super Bowl, and it all came about in a week!
In February the Offbeats were featured for a day at an exhibition at the Sonoma County Museum. For the event we invited my friend Mia Pixley to perform with her cello, Ripple. Mia rose to the occasion putting together a program that included a new composition for the event, and inviting her colleague, cellist Lewis Patzner ,to perform alongside her. The event was very successful, playing to a packed house who engaged in a lively Q&A session.
Invitation
After the show Mia gave me the exciting news that she would be playing next week at the Super Bowl in San Francisco, with the all black-women's Octet, the Color of Noize. They would be performing with the pop icon Coco Jones for the Black National Anthem, "Lift every heart and sing". I congratulated Mia and went home amazed and delighted for her, The next day she called and asked if I'd be willing to offer more of the Offbeats for Color of Noize to play on. Of course I enthusiastically agreed and, one fast paced week later, 4 members of the octet had opted to play Offbeat instruments for the event.
A celebration of diversity and inclusion
The superb performance, which you can watch on YouTube (reposting the video isblocked by the NFL), was part of a larger show which took "Diversity " as its theme. It was a delightful and uplifting event and a real breath of fresh air at a time when diversity and non-conformity frightens many people instead of enriching and inspiring our lives. I feel that the Offbeat fiddles had some significant symbolic meaning in this context and I was really honored to have the instruments be a part of this event.
Apart from having had the Offbeats pass before the gaze of 125,600,000 viewers - making them some of the most seen fiddles on the planet - I am really happy for the enthusiastic interest that they recieved from the Black musical community. I hope to be able to do more with minority musicians in the future.
