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NEWSLETTER OF THE
May 2019
SVAS Next Meeting: Sunday June 2nd, at Christ Episcopal Church in Los Altos (Driving instructions on page 3)
YES, there IS a Jam Band session in June, led by Bob Stanfield. Please bring your accordion to this popular event, and join in playing the easy familiar
tunes.
Gail Campanella
As a youngster growing up in a large Italian family in northeastern Colorado, Gail showed an interest in the only musical instrument in her home, her mother's 1930’s accordion. Music les-sons began at age 10, and at age 14, she began teaching. In high school she studied with Antho-ny Pennetti in Denver, CO.
She majored in piano at Loretto Heights College in Denver while continuing her accordion studies with Prof. Robert Davine at the University of Denver.
After graduation, she played “honky-tonk” piano in Central City, Colorado, and taught 4th, 5th, and 6th grade general music in the Denver Public Schools. She studied the Orff and Kodaly methods of music education and received certification in Orff-Schulwerk.
Gail performed solo in the 2013 and 2017 Cotati Accordion Festivals. In addition to the Santa Barbara and Los Angeles Accordion Clubs, she has been guest artist for the following: Silicon Valley Accordion Society (2016, 2017), San Francisco Accordion Club (2015 – 2017), 2015 Orange County Big Squeeze, 2015 National Accordion Orchestra (Gene Van Paemel), South Bend, IN, Chicago Accordion Club (2016), Las Vegas Accordion Convention (2016, 2017),
Washington Metropolitan Accordion Society (2016), SB City College Jazz Band (2017), Los Angeles Symphonic Winds (2018), San Diego ALSI (2019).
Gail is a member of the Los Angeles Accordionaires Pops Orchestra and the Santa Barbara Accordion International Mu-sic Society (AIMS). She is currently leader of a project which is offering free classes in accordion at three Santa Barbara elementary schools.
Gail’s solo album, entitled, Discovery (2016), is dedicated to her family and life on the farm in Weldona, Colorado. The CD is available at cdbaby.com.
Gail and her husband, John, live in Santa Barbara, CA, and are parents to GianCarlo, Dino and Veronica.
SILICON VALLEY ACCORDION SOCIETY MAY 2019 Page 2
Bob Stanfield - Treasurer’s Message Hello from Bob (your treasurer) this month. Bill is in the mountains enjoying a few days away from city life. Our May meeting was a lot of fun, with performances by many of our members on their accordions for the entire afternoon. It was delightful so many volun-teered to join in to entertain us. We appreciated how well Barbara Corsiglia managed the scheduling of the players. Pam Kawashima volunteered to staff the check-in table, with Dick Siudzinski manning the raffle ticket sales. Thanks for the extra effort you both put into our meeting. We will be looking forward to seeing and hearing Gail Campanella at our June meet-ing on June 2nd . It is a long trip up from her home in Santa Barbara. Hopefully she will bring some of her CDs for sale. She is a super entertainer, and you don’t want to miss her.
Thank you to the many folks who brought goodies to share for our meeting. We had lots of good snacks, sandwiches and desserts. Scott Stanfield kept things organized and re-filled at the food table for us. Thank you Scott. Scott Williamson did the write-up for this month’s meeting and you can read all about it below.
Please bring your membership dues to our next meeting if possible, or mail them to our PO Box. There is a separate note in this newsletter about dues and where to send them.
Hope to see you at our June meeting. Our new location is working out really well. Good acoustics, lots of room and easy to find….it is not much further than our old location, so if you have not yet attended a meeting at Christ Episcopal Church, make an effort to come to see Gail Campanella in June.
That’s it for now.
Bob Stanfield
Did you miss a meeting performance? You can view some on YouTube. To view Pam’s Videos from past meetings: Go to youtube.com, type in “accordionpam” in the search field (next to the magnifying glass.)
Bob Stanfield
Dues are Due! from Bob the Treasurer
As usual, each year in May and June we request our members to renew their membership by paying an annual membership fee to keep our treasury healthy and to be able to send out a newsletter, as well as bring you good entertainment by bringing in professional musicians to entertain us at our meetings, and help support other expenses of the club, such as insurance, equipment, and administrative supplies.
Platinum membership: $200 per year, free admission to club meetings for you and family members plus up to two additional guests at each meeting.
Gold membership: $125 per year, free admission for you and a guest at each meeting.
Regular membership: $35 per year. $5 door fee for admission to each meeting. Mail your membership dues to Silicon Valley Accordion Society, PO Box 1513, Los Altos, CA 94023, with the check payable to SVAS.
Meeting Report. This was a meeting with 18 Featured Performers! It is NOT so easy to give everyone their fair share of the write up! Please accept apologies if we made mistakes about your music selections or missed important details. We took the liberty of add-ing in some side notes about your music, saving these notes from being only a recitation of player + music played. But if there are errors there too, more indulgence is craved! Colette Ogata started off the afternoon of performances with Quando Caliente El Sol (When the Sun warms up.) This is a famous piece from the 1960s, a huge hit all over Europe as well as the Spanish-speaking world. She followed this with the Ar-gentine tango, El Choclo. The word means Corn Cob. If that sounds strange, Wikipedia explains that El Choclo was the nick-name of a well-known proprietor of a well-known nightclub in Buenos Aires. Continued on page 4
Silicon Valley Accordion Society MAY 2019 Page 3
Driving directions to Christ Episcopal Church, 1040 Border Road, Los Altos, CA 94024 From Hwy 280, San Jose area: North on Hwy 280, exit at El Monte Road, East (toward the Bay, away from the hills) at the 3rd signal, turn right on University Ave, (if you get to the Foothill Expressway, you have gone one block too far) approx. ¼ mile to end of University, turn right, go about 100 feet, turn left on Border Road. In one block you will see the Christ Episcopal Church sign, turn right into driveway and go to the top of the hill for parking. From Hwy 280, San Mateo and other northern locations, take 280 south to El Monte Road and go east away from the hills and toward the bay. At the 3rd signal, turn right on University Ave, drive approx.. ¼ mile to end, turn right, go 100 feet, turn left onto Border Road. In one block, you will see the Christ Episcopal Church sign, turn right into the driveway and to top of hill for parking.
Around the Accordion World
• Plenty going on, but not much room this month because of so much in our own little Accordion World.
• SVAS member Pam Tom performs on Saturday mornings at the Farmers Market, Central Park, Davis.
• For an interesting video you might check out 3 Leg Torso. This is a quartet based in Portland, Oregon. Originally the en-semble included a violin, cello and accordion. More recently, they added a fourth, very versatile player with an interesting collection of instruments. They play chamber music, tango, klezmer, latin and Roma music. A great YouTube video is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ukd7mgcdXs
• In case you are going to Malta, an accordion orchestra there makes occasional appearances: https://www.visitmalta.com/en/event-details/2019-04/accordion-concert-12704 . In Scotland, an accordion band travelling by ferry over to Belfast in Ire-land were able to prevent an attempted suicide jump from the ferry: https://www.linlithgowgazette.co.uk/lifestyle/bo-ness-band-s-ferry-trip-led-to-act-of-heroism-1-4893918 . From June 27 to 30, les Nuits de Nacre will be held in Tulle, France. This is the largest event dedicated to the accordion in France. https://www.tourismecorreze.com/en/events/nuits_de_nacre_festival.html
• Wish there were more space!
SILICON VALLEY ACCORDION SOCIETY MAY 2019 Page 4
(Meeting Report, continued from page 2)
Colette finished with Peg of My Heart. She played the whole song, and not just the famous chorus. It was a great start to the afternoon.
Then it was Mei Lu’s turn. Mei feels that she is still very new to playing the accordion and she is nervous. Nevertheless, she played 3 pieces very nicely: La Vie en Rose, La Paloma and a great version of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.
Following Mei was Tseli Wu. Tseli is a new member, and a very accomplished ac-cordion player. She and Colette play in the Happy Days Band (which now has a very strong accordion line up!) They should definitely be finding more public engagements in the future. Tseli had not put her name down to play, but someone else “volunteered” her. So she played two pieces from
memory: (A complicated arrangement of ) Carnival of Venice, then Ricardo’s Waltz. Great playing!
Next up was Misha Studenkov. Another new member, and probably our youngest member by far. Thank you so much for joining Misha. Misha played two pieces. The first
was from Moldavia. Misha explained something about the very involved history of Moldavia. The eastern side of what used to be a large country is now the Republic of Moldova. The western side is part of Romania, and the northern and southeastern parts are part of Ukraine (although the southeastern part was recently annexed by Russia as part of Crimea.) Also add: for several hundred years, Moldavia paid a handsome tribute to the Ottoman Turks.
Phew! Misha’s tune was a beautiful love song. Like the history of the nation, the tune had a complicated history of being banned and being compulsorily learned in the Army. His second piece was a French musette tune La Valse de la Forêt. It is a difficult piece to play well with a bouncy, varying rhythm, but Misha mastered it perfectly.
Then an unexpected treat: husband and wife, new members, Peter and Joan Lottermoser. Joan played the button box, and Peter played a harmonica. They played 3 pieces: Oh Susannah, Just Because, and ended with Auf Wiedersehen (Goodbye, in German.) The two free reed instru-ments blended together very well. Hopefully we will hear them again soon.
Next up was was Pam Kawashima. Pam has been hiding her light under a bushel for way too long! She played beautifully with extravagant use of right hand chords. And even by Pam’s own Guidelines for Perform-
ers (See Newsletter of March 2018, p7. You can get it from the SVAS web-site) she checked all the boxes: she stood up so that everyone could easily see her, there was no hiding behind a music stand, she had memorized the music so that she could look at the audience while she was playing. She began with La Paloma (The White Dove.) Pam played chords with right
hand, the whole time. It was a beautiful performance. She continued with La Cumparsita. This is, per Wik-ipedia, among the most famous tangos of all time. And again it was a wonderful performance. We have to persuade Pam to play for us again soon!
Pam was followed by Marcia Coullahan. Marcia also plays in the Happy Days band. This time, after fighting with her back strap, Marcia treated us to Tiajuana Taxi (with clever reed changes), Les Bicyclettes de Belsize, and ended with an invigorating Music! Music! Music! (perhaps better known as Put Another Nickel In.) Les Bicyclettes de Belsize, despite the name, is a British composition that was patterned on the classic French
film Les Parapluies de Cherbourg. That is a sung-through movie (almost a cinematic opera) about a sad love story, with the beautiful song “If it takes for ever, I will wait for you,” composed by Michel Legrand. The sad part, of course, is that she didn’t wait when the hero went off to war. Belsize Park is a small park beside a tube station in London. Les Bicyclettes is also a beautiful piece of music, but it was widely thought to be a spoof of
Les Paraplueis.
Ron Harris, also with a Weltmeister accordion like Marcia, played three pieces for us. The first was All of Me. The audience joined in singing when Ron played the familiar cadences. He followed this with Jalousie Tango.
This decidedly Latin piece is actually a composition of a Dane: Jacob Gade. Jacob composed several tangos, but Jalousie is undoubtedly the most famous, and has been recorded by many players and orchestras and used in several movies. Ron moved on to the two famous pieces from the Godfather films: Speak Softly, and Come Live Your Life with Me, both composed by Nino Rota.
Colette Ogata
Mei Lu
Tseli Wu
Misha Studenkov
Peter and Joan
Pam Kawashima
Marcia Coullahan
Ron Harris
ACCORDION CLUB MEETING SCHEDULES IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
Accordion Club of the Redwoods (ACR) meets on the third Monday of every other month Herman & Sons Hall, 860 Western Avenue, Petaluma CA 94952. Contact: (707) 795-4060. Golden State Accordion Club (GSAC) has three divisions: The Napa Valley Chapter meets the second Thursday of the month at 5:30 PM, Runway Restaurant, 2044 Airport Rd, Napa, CA 94558. Contact George Bachich for more information, (707) 738-5276. The Humboldt Club meets on the third Tuesday, 7:00 PM., Humboldt Swiss Club, 5403 Tompkins Hill Road, Loleta, CA 95551. The Sacramento Club meets on the fourth Wednesday of the month at 6:30 pm at the Elks Lodge No.6,6446 Riverside Blvd, Sacramento, CA. Contact for all the GSAC: Carole Enneking (707) 864-2359. Good Time Accordion Club (GTAC) meets on the second Wednesday of the month at 7:00 PM, Escalon Community Center, 1055 Escalon Ave., Escalon, CA 95320. Contact Ed Sciarini (209) 545-3603. Northern California Accordion Society (NCAS) meets on the first Wednesday of the month 6:30 PM 6365 Douglas Blvd., Lutheran Church Social Hall, Granite Bay, CA 95746. San Francisco Accordion Club (SFAC) meets on the third Sunday of the month 2:00 PM . Chetcuti Community Room, Civic Center Plaza, 450 Poplar Ave., Milbrae, CA 94030 ; Contact Lynn Ewing 650-453-3391. Silicon Valley Accordion Society (SVAS) meets on the first Sunday of the month, Christ Episcopal Church, 1040 Border Road, Los Altos, CA 94024. Contact: Bill Topogna (408) 984-5290.
♫ Who’s Playing??? ♫
William DeMichelis - Music with an accent, 408-375-0001, [email protected] Reno DiBono - plays the second Friday of each month at Montavalle in Scotts Valley, dancing to the Blue Moon Trio. Joe Domitrowich/AlpinersUSA - see www.alpinersusa.com or www.capricious-accordion.com or call 408-255-1259 Happy Days Band - Schedule Concerts with Ken Caple (408) 892-2760 Ernie Beran - Plays at the Tyrolean Inn Restaurant in Ben Lomond, CA every Saturday 6:00-9:00 pm Sunday 7 Band - Plays every first Friday of the month in Los Altos in front of Le Boulanger bakery on Main and Second in the down town area. Schedule Concerts with Bob Stanfield (650) 888-3701 Mike Zampiceni - Plays at O Sole Mio restaurant, Millbrae, 6:00-8:30 on Sundays. Also from April - Oct at the Tee Nee Thai restaurant, San Jose, on Friday nights. Gloria Gazave and Paul Aebersold, “Il Duetto Musica” - Contact Gloria at 415.845.0772, or email [email protected]. Mike Marotta, Dave Dally and Dave Marzetti play at Portola Hotel and Spa atrium restaurant, Monterey, Sunday May 12, and May 26, from 11:30 -2:30.
Silicon Valley Accordion Society MAY 2019 Page 6
ACCORDION TEACHERS:
Peter Di Bono: San Francisco, (415) 699-8674 Lynn Ewing: San Carlos, (650) 867-2633 [email protected] Lou Jacklich: San Lorenzo, (510) 317-9510 Marian Kelly: Cupertino, (650) 954-3711 Pamela Tom: Davis, [email protected] Mike Zampiceni: Sunnyvale and Hayward, (408) 569-2579 Mikezamp.com Ernie Beran: Aptos, (831) 238-4961 [email protected]
SVAS BOARD of Directors / Officers
PRESIDENT: BILL TAPONGA, 408 984-5290
VICE PRESIDENT:
SECRETARY: SUE DOUGLAS
TREASURER: BOB STANFIELD , 650 888-3701
PROGRAM SCHEDULE: PAM KAWASHIMA [email protected]
WEBMASTER: PAM KAWASHIMA [email protected]
NEWSLETTER Editor: SCOTT WILLIAMSON [email protected]
NL Reporters: MARCIA COULLAHAN, SUE DOUGLAS, GORGIA SUTHERLAND, MARYBARBARA ZORIO Board Committee: Dennis Judd Art Maggio Norma Parsons Dick Siudzinski
Coming Events at SVAS: June: Doors open at 1:00pm 1:30—1:55 Open mike for players registered with Pam
2:00—3:00 Gail Campanella
3:10—3:30 Break and raffle
3:40—4:30 Jam band session, led by Bob - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - July: Gordon Kohl August: Mike and Steve Trucco September: The Cantones (Rich Denier, Larry Denier, Dave Dally)
SILICON VALLEY ACCORDION SOCIETY MAY 2019 Page 5
The next player was George Chavez. George is a very accomplished player, as he demonstrated. He com-poses tunes for his own performances, although on this occasion he played two well known pieces: Mexican Hat Dance, and Save the Last Dance for Me. Mexican Hat Dance is the national dance of Mexico where the tune is
known as Jarabe Tapatio, almost always with mariachis accentuating the rhythm. George knows exactly how to pace Latin pieces! For his second piece, George explained some history behind Save the Last Dance for Me. When he played the tune, George also sang the chorus.
Taking us up to the break and raffle was Behzad Kiasat. Behzad is a very regular attendee at the Society’s meetings. It was a rare treat for us to listen to him
playing music in the style of the area beside the Caspian Sea and north of Iran. Behzad’s type of accordion is called a Garmon. He purchased it in Iran, but thought that it had probably been made in southern Russia. It is
tuned to the music scale familiar in Western music (probably pioneered by the Greeks nearly 3,000 years ago!) But the rhythms were decidedly different, with a lot of bellows shakes. Behzad explained afterwards that the first tune was a typical fast-paced piece from Azerbaijan. It obviously takes a lot of effort to keep up the pace, because Behzad closed his eyes most of the time, and his fingers were flying as he played entirely from memory. For his second piece, Behzad kept the same style and some of the same cadences, but inserted a cou-
ple of well-known pieces as reference points for the audience: The Loveliest Night of the Year, and Oh Sole Mio (It’s Now or Never, for Elvis fans.) This worked very well! We are lucky to have the opportunity to lis-ten to this style of music.
Past-president Ken Caple restarted the performances after the break. Ken had brought his Concerto accordion. This has reeds just as in a regular acoustic accordion, but it is also a digital accordion with more than 350 sampled sounds that let the player create astonishing effects. And Ken is very accomplished on his instrument. He played the Battle Hymn of the Republic (Mine eyes have seen
the glory.) as an acoustic accordion piece. Then to demonstrate something of the Concerto’s versatility he contin-ued with a piece from Star Wars. A spaceship takes off in a thunderstorm (with thunder and lightning strikes) that then segues into the familiar Star Wars victory march. Thank you, Ken
for a masterful performance.
Next up was Don Savant. Don is one of the Society’s best known players. He also plays at Filoli Gardens. He specializes in rich, beautiful music from the Big Band era. Don is one of the few people to own a Giulietti accordi-on, considered by many to be among the finest accordions ever made. His selection today was: Blue Moon, followed
by Stardust, then Moments to Remember. Don never fails to play a masterful performance.
After Don, it was Ed Massolo’s turn to play for us again. Ed will be 95 in June, but looks
and plays like a 60 year old. How does he do it? Reno Di Bono reminded us that Ed flew B17s in the second world war. Towards the end of the war his plane was shot down. Ed bailed out and survived, but of course became a POW until liberated by the US forces in 1945. Ed joked that in years past, he could memorize tunes and play without music. But nowdays, he preferred to have the music sheets available. He played two tunes: an Italian love song Anema e Core (English version: How Wonderful to Know.) It was recorded by Andy Williams and Perry Como
amongst others. Ed also played Jalousie – there is something captivating about that tango!
Dennis Judd came without an accordion, and as he usually does, with no music. When asked to
play, he borrowed a (priceless!) Vignoni, and played two pieces from memory: Barbara Polka and It's a Wonderful World. It’s not easy playing a borrowed accordion, but Dennis did very well – thanks Dennis.
Bob Stanfield first played two pieces as a solo. The first was one of Bob’s favorites: His
Eye Is On the Sparrow. This is a gospel hymn sung by many famous artists, including most recently Whitney Houston for movie background music. Bob’s second solo piece was another hymn tune: I was there to hear your borning cry, also widely played and sung in gospel circles. Then once son Scott had drums and tambourine instruments ready, the pair plunged into Mexican Hat Dance.
It becomes tricky for duets, with the abrupt switch in rhythms, but Scott handled it superbly. Bob’s final piece was actually drawn from the tune collection of the local Norwegian folk dance group (who have performed for the Society.) That group includes a short American suite in their repertoire . One of these tunes is Teton Mountain Stomp. After he first encountered this piece a few months ago, Bob
mentioned that it became a brain-worm in his head. He couldn’t stop thinking about it! It is, indeed, a catchy tune. Scott Williamson
joined for this piece.
George Chavez
Behzad Kiasat
Ken Caple
Don Savant
Ed Massolo
Scott and Bob Stanfield
Dennis Judd
SILICON VALLEY ACCORDION SOCIETY MAY 2019 Page 7
The Raffle
Thanks to everyone who purchased raffle tickets. The net proceeds of the raffle help sustain the Society’s activities. This month, Ken took home the bottle of Stags Leap Cabernet, Pam and Frances also won a red wine. Colette took the box of Ferrero Rochet chocolates. George settled for a Chardonnay, as did Norma, and John took home the box of Whitman Sampler choco-lates. There were double prize winners, you lucky people, but no room for double photos.
Now it was time for Barbara to put down her marker pen, and pick up her guitar. Together with husband Vic, the duo played two Italian pieces: O Marenariello, and Chitarra Romana (Roman Guitar.) O Marenariello is a Neapolitan song about love and the sea, from
the 1890s. Perry Como and Andrea Bocelli have both recorded it, amongst others. And evi-dently it is known by more than one name, because Reno Di Bono mentioned that he recog-nized the tune as Vicino al Mare. Translations of the lyrics are available on the web. Chitarra Romana is an instantly recognizable Italian tune. It has a sad verse melody, and a fast chorus
interlude that is not easy to play. Vic and Barabara did a magnificent job (as always!)
The last performer of the day was Reno Di Bono. Reno was prepared with an interest-ing music selection, peppered with related anecdotes and history. He began with Olive Blos-soms Waltz, a favorite tune of Pietro Frosini. After playing this beautiful tune, Reno related
how Frosini became popular in New York and the East Coast, but not so well-appreciated in San Francisco where he had settled with his family. Frosini eventually decided a factor was the new piano accordion keyboard in place of Frosini’s preferred button keyboard. So he included a fake cardboard piano keyboard on his accordion to hide the buttons. Reno passed around the cover page of a a Frosini’s tune which showed a picture of Frosini standing ready to play his
accordion, and sure enough there is something very odd about the keyboard, but not a button is visible! Reno followed this with Chattanooga Choo Choo, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, These Foolish Things, and I’ll Be Seeing You (the haunting love song from the 1940s.) Then Reno paused to mention that most of the love songs from the 50s and later were rubbish compared to
the World War II era and 1940s tunes! It was a strong statement, but nobody argued back! As one last piece of advice, Reno mentioned that, in a run of notes up to a high note, it is usually a good practice to play the higher notes steadily more quietly. Reno mentioned that he had picked that up from Joe Smiel.
Vic & Barbara Corsiglia
Reno showing the fake keyboard
New Members! Welcome new members Joan and Peter Lottermoser from San Juan Bautista. You probably read above that Joan and Peter played in the program this month. Now retired, Joan and Peter used to run a German Res-taurant in San Juan Bautista called Joan & Peter’s German Restaurant. It was often mentioned in travel articles about San Juan Bautista.
Silicon Valley Accordion Society meets first Sunday of each month, at CHRIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, 1040 Border Road, Los Altos, CA 94024.
Doors open at 1:00. $5 for members, $ 10 for non members, 16 years and under free. • JOIN THE CLUB
• Annual Memberships: Regular $ 35, Gold $ 125, Platinum $ 200
FIRST CLASS POSTAGE ♫
P.O. Box 1513
Los Altos, CA
94023
Newsletter of the
DID WE ENJOY THE SPRING FLING?
Hmmm, hard to say!
