Music is Italian

My father used to sing to us as long as I can remember. The songs were Neopolitan ballads. My mother encouraged the arts and demonstrated them in her handicrafts. Not only were the arts professed in my family, I encountered them elsewhere in my extended family. I was close to all my cousins and my cousin Frank Sterlina (Frankie) was one cousin I played with the most being a boy just a year or so older than me. Frankie lived across the street from our house and we were at each other's house day in and day out. At a certain time of the year, on Saturdays, when I would go over to Frankie's house, his father would be listening to the Metropolitan Opera on radio. My father's sister, Aunt Jenny, also had a deep interest in the opera. More on that later. When I was in 6th grade, our class put on a class play, such as can be at that age. My teacher, Miss Schier (sp.) asked me to design the backdrop. It was very well executed and I have a strong memory about how much she thought of the final product. It must have been around Holloween because the backdrop I designed featured a spider web. Sometime early on in Junior High School, my parents decided I should lear to play the violin. So I started getting lessons from a lady who played in the Schenectady, New York symphony. I took the lessons at her home, and easy walking distance from my house. For some time I used a rented violin. I did well enough that I started playing in my junior high school orchestra, so my parent purchased a new violin for me. I remember well the Saturday we bought it. I continued playing the violin along with continued lessons into high school. How it came about, I don't remember, but I started playing in the All City Youth Orchestra. During this time my cousin Louise DiCerbo, Aunt Jenny's daughter, was taking voice lessons as an operatic saprano. And Louise was very good. So much so that she was enlisted into the Academy for the Performing Arts at La Scala, Milan, Italy, an academy started in 1776. One weekend my parents met with Aint Jenny and Uncle Vicent at their house, the meeting was about me going to Italy to study violin at the same time as Louise. Another vivid memory. I told my parents there when questioned that I didn't want to go because the violin, while fun to play, I was sure that I was never going to be an accomplished musician. And that was that. Louise went, I didn't! A few years ago, I gave my violin to my grandaughter, Alexandra, who was leaning to play it through school. As I grow older but still living at home, I rented a saxophone (Alto) and learned to play it. It was a fun time. The basement in our home was comfortable, so I would do my playing in the basement. Violin was okay "upstairs" but saxophone playing was for "downstairs." My interest is music continued with listening to records. This was the period in of the 33 1/3 records. I was working in the "garage" and used my earnings to buy symphony and operatic records. At the start I had purchased a very basic record plyer to play my records. This music listening of classical music by me has coninued to this day. Another aspect of music for me has been singing. I sang in the school choir at my high school, in a coral group in the Air Force, Catholic church choirs at Sacred Heart and St. Joseph Cathedral, both in Baton Rouge. I find classical church music to be a form of my prayers especially Gregorian chant and "High Masses." My wife, Shirley, also liked music, not so much the classical "heavy" stuff but most. In fact we used to have music parties where we would listen to music seriousley for about an hour after a nice meal. I would print up prior to our concert a pamphlet of the music to be played that evening as a rememberance for our guests. The music was played in our family room where I had installed a full sound system.