NEWSLETTER OF THE

November 2018 SVAS Next Meeting:

Sunday, December 2 at Harry’s Hofbrau

There will be a Jam Band session in December, led by Ken Caple. Also open mike from 1:00 to 1:30, and 2:30 to about 3:00. Booked time slots are now shown on page 3

Joe Domitrowich—

Joe Domitrowich began playing the accordion at the age of 8 in eastern PA where he grew up steeped in the music of Austria, Hungary, and Slovenia. In California, Joe became best known for his premiere SFO Bay Area AlpinersUSA Oktoberfest Band which has per-formed with vocalist, Margot Turrell, as headline act at major festivals throughout the country. In the off-season, Joe’s Ca-priccio Dance Band, plays ballroom, rock, and Euro-ethnic music for dinner-dance events throughout the SFO Bay Area. In the 1990s, after a 12-year hiatus in playing music, Joe’s in-terest in accordion was rekindled and further unleashed by the potential he saw in the modern digital accordion. Today, as a self-described “technician” of the accordion, Joe continually strives for excellence in his mission to arrange, record, and perform live on the accordion, diverse genres of music from classical to standards, novelty and pop - in short, from Strauss to Santana - sometimes reminiscent of a band or full orchestra. His solo act, Capricious Accordion, has been enthusiastically received by audiences at the Cotati Accordion festival, the Dallas National Accordion Assoc. Convention, and the Las Vegas International Accordion Convention. Most recently, Joe’s efforts have materialized through two en-

sembles as Duo Internationale, formed together with professional opera and pop vocalist, Liana Braunova, from Prague, and, adding concert violinist Dave Dally, as Café Vienna Trio. In 2015, the latter had the honor to perform a concert for 400 at-tendees, the largest ever for the Los Gatos Community Concert Association series. Joe particularly enjoys playing in intimate settings for audiences who appreciate Italian, Hungarian, Bavarian, Swiss, Slove-nian and other Euro-ethnic music. He has performed live on KQED TV in San Francisco, KKUP Radio in Santa Clara and on cable TV and commercial radio elsewhere. Further information can be found on his website at www.capricious-accordion.com.

SILICON VALLEY ACCORDION SOCIETY NOVEMBER 2018 Page 2

Bill Tapogna - President’s Message Hi, folks--It is November already, and the Holidays will be upon us in no time at all! The elections are over, and we have a fair idea of the results. Our mail carrier is happy--no more campaign letters/flyers! Now comes a ton of shopping catalogs! Speaking of holidays--which of course will include a lot of great music and all the memories associated with that, Past President Ken Caple has put together a holiday tune book which his "Happy Days" band will be playing at our December concert. Bring your accordions to our December 2 meeting and you can join in playing some of your favorite tunes. Please let Pam Kawashima know if you would like to play so that she can schedule you in! Our November concert was most memorable! Ken's band played tunes which they had

been practicing for quite a while, did a great job, and received many compliments. I am proud to be a member of that band--we have become like a family--work hard practicing the songs which Ken selects, and have enjoyable rehears-als at his home ("Musik Haus"). I always enjoy watching the reactions which the audience displays during our concerts. They are appreciative of the efforts of our members' playing and encouraging for those of us who are "Not quite ready for Prime Time" play-ing. And when we have entertainers like we had at this last concert, the reactions are....well---mesmerizing is a good term! Sue Douglas is doing the write-up on the program (thanks Sue!), so I will leave it to her to tell the rest of the tale. I would like to make a comment on the style of music that Steve & Mike Trucco play. (Thanks to Vic & Bar-bara Corsiglia for enlightening me about this). Much of what Steve and Mike play is in the "Val Taro" style, (sometimes referred to as Val Taro Musette), which was brought to the United States from Italy in the early 1900s. This style was a favorite of the Italian Accordionists from the Borgo Val di Taro region in Northern Italy. Barbara's father was raised in this region, and would frequently sing many of the songs that were popular when he was a youngster there. There are several web-sites which address this information should you want more information, in-cluding this one: www.washingtonaccordions.org/ValTaro.htm that gives an interesting historical account.

I must also address something about which I have received many phone calls. Our friend and loyal supporter of SVAS Jim Basso fell during the early portion of our last meeting. I spoke with his son a couple days later and learned that Jim broke his hip as a result of the fall. He had surgery the following day, and is recuperating. We wish you well, Jim, and quick healing. Earlier in the meeting I was speaking with Jim, and he was so happy to be back at our meeting (Jim's wife Lucille passed away a few months ago, and he had missed several meetings.) Also, Jim was so pleased that he had recruited a new member for SVAS! (A Note: Thanks to several members for helping Jim, and especially Karen Buonomo, RN for helping and encouraging a 9-1-1 call to come to his aid!)

That's all Folks! We look forward to seeing you on December 2 for our Holiday special show! Stay safe and well.

Once again, Sue Douglas was our reporter for this month. And as we’ve said before, she is also an enthusiastic player. Her report begins on page 4. Sue also played as an individual player, and she was very helpful in allowing her performance slot to be moved to a vacant time before the Happy Days Band began their performance. Situations like this arise quite frequent-ly, and it is much easier to manage when players are flexible about their performance slots.

Lou Buonomo, our VP, attended the Las Vegas Accordion Convention in October this year. He wrote up an enthusiastic account of the convention, with several photos. It starts here, and continues on page 7. The Las Vegas International Accordion Convention It was wonderful to have such a large group of participants from our local clubs. Local at-tendees that I recognized at the October 15 - 18 convention included Ken and Sharon Caple, Lynn Ewing, Mike Zampiceni, Lou Jacklich, Casey and Colette Ogata, Bernie and Marcia Coullahan, Pamela Tom, Daniel and Patricia Kisner, and Lou and Karen Buonomo. [Go to top of page 7]

Silicon Valley Accordion Society NOVEMBER 2018 Page 3

Something new! Here is the current list of sign-ups for the open play/open mic sessions for the next 2 months. Play times can be anything from 10—15 minutes (3 or 4 short tunes). RESERVED TIME SLOTS IN OPEN PLAY: DECEMBER AND JANUARY 2019 December 1:00—1:30 Dennis Judd, Herman Schmalzreid, Garland Cheatam 2:30—3:00 Sherry Xie, David Profio, George Chavez January No sign-ups yet. It is wide open for everyone. New performers and groups are especially welcome.

Accordion News

• New members! We have two new members this month. Welcome to Don Slama from Santa Clara, and Tseli Wu from Saratoga. Please consider bringing along, or borrowing, an accordion, and introducing yourself in one of the open play sessions?

• In an era when many of the accordion conventions and camps are combating dwindling attendances, one heart-ening sign is that several new and reconfigured events have popped up!

Gordon Kohl’s San Diego Accordion Camp The New Orleans Accordion Festival World Accordion and Tango Festival. This used to be a separate event, but it has moved dates to combine with the Victoria International Accordion Festival. This year, this event also hosted the Coupe Mondial (World Cup), awarded to the best competing accordion player in the world. There was also a digital accordion festival. Contiued on page 7

SILICON VALLEY ACCORDION SOCIETY NOVEMBER 2018 Page 4

Sue’s Meeting Report, continued from page 2. While the Happy Days Band was getting ready to entertain us, Sue Douglas wiggled up and

played “Julida Polka” and three Mexican melodies. The audience enjoyed it, and there was loud ap-plause when Sue finished.

Then an Italian-themed group played, con-

sisting of Vic and Barbara Corsiglia, and Bill and Gloria Tapogna. Their selection was wonderful, including the timeless “ Roman Guitar,” “ Mala Femmena,” “Funiculi Funicula,” and “Iupali Iu-pala.”

The Happy Days Band players took the stage. The band includes Bill and Gloria Tapogna, Lou Buonomo, Mar-

cia Coullahan, Marybarbara Zorio, violinist Sharon Teeter, and Hubert Kallabis, all led by Ken Caple. True to form, they started with “Happy Days Are Here Again.” Then for almost an hour they played a great selection, including “Fly Me to the Moon,” “Mr. Sandman,” “True Love,” “Some Enchanted Evening,” “Pennsylvania Polka,” “Sleeping Beauty Waltz,” “ Autumn Leaves,” “Spanish Eyes,” and “ Beer Barrel Polka.” They ended with a mashup of “There is A Tav-ern In the Town” that segued into “Hot Time In the Old Town Tonight,” and back to “Tavern.” Dancers really enjoyed several pieces, as you can see in the photo!

Then Behzad Kiasat played several Persian pieces with his button box, and that instrument is

not easy to learn to play. Middle Eastern music often sounds different to American ears – the octave is the same, of course, but the intervals between notes follows a different pattern than the conventional diatonic scale used in the West. We are lucky to have someone perform this music – not many people get a chance to hear it. It was while Bezad was playing that Jim Basso’s fall occurred. After a respect-ful moment or two while Jim was first being helped, Bezad resumed playing – exactly the right thing to do in the circumstances.

Just before the break, President Bill Tapogna asked about birthdays. Overcoming the usual reticence, Bill announced that Gloria Ta-pogna’s birthday had occurred in late October, and that Frances Lam was having a birthday in a few day’s time. Frances is Pam Kawashima’s Mom, and attends virtually every meeting of the Society – one of our most loyal supporters. Bill lead a rousing chorus of Happy Birthday. Bill also welcomed several friends from the Silicon Valley Organ Society.

The raffle was the usual mixture of excitement and chaos. There were a lot of prizes! (continued on next page)

Sue Douglas

Barbara & Vic Corsiglia, and Gloria & Bill Tapogna

The Happy Days Band. Ken made a point of introducing each piece with the name and history.

Behzad

Gloria and Frances Birthdays!

SILICON VALLEY ACCORDION SOCIETY NOVEMBER 2018 Page 5

Go to FACEBOOK to make comments and upload your photos.

After the break and the raffle, our featured players, Steve Trucco and his son, Mike. Three items to mention: Mike also plays for the Long Time band in the Central Valley, and, together they run an accordion-themed website called www.accordionsrock.com.—just the place if you ever want CDs, accordion-themed items like hats, T shirts, aprons, .... And, they were recently back from the Las Vegas accordion convention where they were featured in the opening evening. Once they started to play, they didn’t even use sheet music. All the melodies were in their heads! Steve played each main melody and Mike accompanied them with several other notes and glissandos. They enter-tained us with a medley of “Spanish Eyes,” “Tick Tock Polka,” “Oh Ma-rie,” “Viene Sul Mar.” Vic and Barbara Corsiglia, and others, could not

resist dancing to those melodies. Steve and Mike played “Helena Polka,” the kid’s song “Quando ero Piccolino,” “All Of Me,” and Mike sang that. They played “Amapola,” “ Masquerade Polka,” “Tango of the Roses,” “Angelina” and Mike sang that. And he sang “Return to Sorrento.” When they played “Pennies From Heaven,” the audience clapped along. And Mike sang “That’s Amore.” Next, they played “Arrivederci Roma” (a Dean Martin classic), “La Cam-pagnola” polka, “Volare,” and their finale was the “Beer Barrel Polka,” and we sang the “Roll out the barrel” segment.

This time, the winners included: Rosemary, Dennis, Arsey, Ray the dancer, John, Don who couldn’t decide between wine or chocolates for at least two minutes, Gloria, Colette, Kathy who almost always wins something, George (like Dennis, George signed up to play next month), Caroline and Norma. Apologies if we have not includ-ed your name. The winners come through the line thick and fast! Finally, thanks for supporting the raffle. It helps cover the Society’s costs for staging performances.

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, Sacrament,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, 1:00 PM at Harry’s Hofbrau, 390 Saratoga Avenue, San Jose, CA 95129. (between Kiely Blvd. and Stevens Creek Blvd. Contact: Bill Topogna (408) 984-5290.

♫ Who’s Playing??? ♫

William DeMichelis - Music with an accent, 408-375-0001, accordionist.sanjose@comcast.net 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 Due Zighi Baci - Schedule Performances with Sheri Mignano at sherimignano@gmail.com 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” - schedule performances with Paul Aebersold, at mazurkaman@yahoo.com

Silicon Valley Accordion Society NOVEMBER 2018 Page 6

ACCORDION TEACHERS:

Peter Di Bono: San Francisco (415) 699-8674 Lynn Ewing: San Carlos, (650) 867-2633 ewinglynn@gmail.com Lou Jacklich: San Lorenzo, (510) 317-9510 Marian Kelly: Cupertino, (650) 954-3711 Mike Zampiceni: Sunnyvale and Hayward, (408) 569-2579 Mikezamp.com Ernie Beran: Aptos, (831) 238-4961 reeds@baymoon.com

SVAS BOARD of Directors / Officers

PRESIDENT: BILL TAPONGA, 408 984-5290

VICE PRESIDENT: LOU BUONOMO, 650 940-1599

SECRETARY: SUE DOUGLAS

TREASURER: BOB STANFIELD , 650 888-3701

PROGRAM SCHEDULE: PAM KAWASHIMA pkawashima@outlook.com

WEBMASTER: PAM KAWASHIMA pkawashima@outlook.com

NEWSLETTER Editor: SCOTT WILLIAMSON aswy01@gmail.com

NL Reporters: MARCIA COULLAHAN, SUE DOUGLAS, GORGIA SUTHERLAND, MARYBARBARA ZORIO Board Committee: Dennis Judd Art Maggio Norma Parsons Dick Siudzinski

Coming Events at SVAS: Sunday December 2, 2018

Meeting : Doors open at 1:00 pm

1:00-1:30 pm Scheduled open play. See current version of schedule on page 3. 1:30-2:30 pm Christmas-themed Jam Session lead by Ken Caple. Music books provided. 2:30—3:00 pm Scheduled open play. See current version of schedule on page 3

3:00—3:30 pm Break & Raffle Drawing Master of Ceremonies Remarks 3:30—4:30 pm Joe Domitrowich

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - January, 2019: Roberto Rosa February: Ron Borelli Trio March: Reno Di Bono Trio

SILICON VALLEY ACCORDION SOCIETY NOVEMBER 2018 Page 7

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 on top) for videos from the club.

More accordion news (continued from page 3)

• Talking while someone is playing is a problem during SVAS meetings. And just to set the record straight, the Board members are as guilty of this as anyone else. We certainly understand how important it seems at the time to chat to our neighbor. But it is distracting and inconsiderate to the player. We all seem to be reasonably sensitive to phone calls—and rush outside if a call has to be answered. But chatting isn’t treated like that. Recently, Reno di Bono actually stopped playing, and made some comments while glaring at the offenders. They didn’t even notice! He gave up and resumed playing. But reasonable etiquette would be to make a quiet word or two into someone’s ear when it is really required, and wait until a gap in the playing for a real conversation, and step outside for a pro-longed conversation, more or less the same as we do for phone calls in meetings.

• Returning to an old theme (finally!): the ABFY medley that every accordion player should know by heart is: “Ain’t She Sweet,” “Baby Face,” “Five Foot Two,” and the final tune: “Yes Sir, That’s My Baby.” They are all from the same 1920s era. “Y” was written by Walter Donaldson and Gus Kahn, both prolific on the music scene. All the tunes are more-or-less(?) Charlestons, lively and rhythmic. It was a new era with electric lighting and dance halls. Frank Sinatra recorded a version in the early 50s. There are many other tunes that could join the list, but a 4-tune medley is long enough!

The Las Vegas Accordion Conven-tion [continued from page 2] Held at the Gold Coast Casi-no and Hotel, activities for the 4-day spectacular event included special music entertainment, music classes, and wonderful lunches and dinners. During the event, SVAS members Mike Zampiceni taught classes and provided entertainment as a strolling accordionist, and Bernie and Marcia Coullahan received a trophy for their laughable costumes. Several of the SVAS spouses participated in a half day venture, and traveled to Red Rock Canyon and Conservation Area, located about 15 miles west of Las Vegas for a guided half day hike. The finale was the “Las Ve-gas International Convention Or-chestra” directed by accordionist Dr. Joan Cochran Summers. The or-chestra was composed of about 60

musicians. The Silicon Valley Accordion Society appreciates all who attended from our local clubs and we look for-ward to another great attendance at the 20th convention, next year. The convention will be held again next year at the Gold Coast Casino and Hotel, in Las Vegas on October 14 – 17, 2019. Come join us next year and we will have a great time! Lou Buonomo

Casey and Colette Ogata, Lou Jacklich and Pam Tom

Bernie and Lou, Marcia and spectators jamming in Ken’s room

Silicon Valley Accordion Society meetings held first Sunday of each month at Harry's Hofbrau, 390 Saratoga Avenue, San Jose, corner of Kiely. Doors open at 1:00, music begins at 1:00 pm. Door fee $5 for members and $ 10.00 for non members, 16 years and under are free. - JOIN THE CLUB - Annual Memberships: Regular $ 35.00, Gold $ 125.00, Platinum $ 200.00

FIRST CLASS POSTAGE ♫

P.O. Box 1513

Los Altos, CA

94023

Newsletter of the