Spending part of my birthday today visiting my cousin Joseph Zamberlan, whom I've not seen since the 70's!  I've seen his mother, brother & sister many times, but Joe's been super-busy with his work building or re-building pipe organs, so a "few" years have slipped past us!  Check out this story just published about him in the Herald-Star in Steubenville, OH.  Joe's holding an open house at his shop to unveil his latest work, Opus 3...read on!

 

 

Plus my nieces have baked me a birthday cake...I'll keep you posted as to the "edibility" of this creation!  Cheers!  Stef

Here's wishing you and your loved ones every kindness and blessing for a Happy New Year!

Please keep my cousin, James W. Warrick & my family, in your prayers this holiday weekend. We buried young James this morning at St. Paul's cemetery in Weirton, WV.   James was only 49 -- he died early Thursday morning, Dec. 21st, of heart failure.  He had just had a triple bypass only a few weeks ago and sometime early Thursday, his heart gave out. He died peacefully in his sleep.  We are all truly saddened by the sudden loss of this happy, funny, joyous man. May he rest in peace.  -Stefano

Well, it's almost been a month exactly since I last posted and given the very little sleep I was running on MOST of that time, it's no wonder! :)  Now that things are winding down into the home stretch for Christmas Day, plenty of time now to reflect back on what was a busy & fun four weeks.  I'll do my best to catch it all up here...

 

Had a blast at our initial show at The Metropolitan Room in Manhattan.  First time playing this room and it's a beauty. Cozy, intimate set-up with a phenomenal sound system.  Big thanks to Manager Lennie Watts & Club Owner, Chris Mazzilli for making us feel right at home at the wonderful venue! www.metropolitanroom.com & Chris's other venue, www.gothamcomedyclub.com  This show also marked the first time playing again with drummer Philip Nestor, whom I hadn't seen since I was out on the road promoting my first record, "So Good To Me"...always fun playing with the ever-joking "Flipper" Philip.  Lorinda Lisitza and I hadn't sung "So In Love", the duet on my holiday CD, "Miracle" since we'd cut it in the studio two years earlier, so that felt great!  sounded great! I can't wait for us to get back in the studio together and on the road together in 2007.  "So In Love" has so many lush background parts, it'd be impossible to cover alone, but Lead Guitarist Dean Bailin kept weaving in all sorts of fantastic guitar fills, it just sounded great.  Pianist Stephen Bocchino was awesome as always -- and tore it UP when we soloed the Gordon Jenkins classic from 1935, "Goodbye": a dark & murky, vocally challenging piece: was a favourite of my Grandfather Tony and still ranks as one of my all-time favourite songs ever.  This is one of those songs that almost demands keen eye interaction between the pianist & vocalist so both can "read" eachother.  It's what makes LIVE performing exciting for both the performers & the audience, because each can witness what is uniquely taking place right before their eyes and ears. 

 

From there, left immediately the next morning to West Virginia to prepare for a number of shows and appearances in the tri-state region (WV, PA, OH). 

 

Met up with Jim Conner at K-97.3fm the first morning I was in town to talk about "Home For Christmas IV" at the White Palace at Wheeling Park.  Spent the week in our final rehearsals, then it was show time! 

 

I had a private show with pianist Matt McTeague & vocalist Carrie Oliver, for several tour buses at Oglebay Park in the Glessner Auditorium.  They were in town overnight to see the lights at Oglebay Park.  Met some terrific folks from Baltimore!  We had a terrific time and are looking forward to seeing them all back in Wheeling next year!  Read more about Wheeling's Festival of Lights at: http://www.oglebay-resort.com/  Special thanks to Scott Schenerlein & Kathleen Graham for all of the help with this show!

 

Moving on now, to "Home For Christmas IV"...The morning I was to pick up guitarist Dean Bailin at the Canton-Akron airport, I had made another appearance on K-97.3fm -- where Jim Conner was talking SNOW in the forecast.  Sure enough, on the way north, to Canton, I encountered white-out conditions for only minutes...then it was all over.  Turned out to be amazingly sunny and mild nearly the entire week (and on the concert day I might add) -- as opposed to concerts-past, where we've had more than a foot of snow on show day or an ice storm.  It's happened consistently!!! :)  Maybe the curse is broken now???  <<By the way, I highly recommend flying in and out of Canton on AirTran.  Ya' just can't beat $39 one-way to LaGuardia and it's soooo easy to get in and out of this airport, you will be pleasantly shocked.>>

 

This was our first year trying a different approach to my local holiday franchise.  Instead of your standard "concert"...I decided to do something similar to what I'd seen in New York City: Where the audience sat down to a nice dinner, drinks, enjoyed themselves, then sat back and relaxed for a concert.  We had a full house at the historic White Palace...in it's beautiful Grand Ballroom upstairs.  I didn't get one morsel of food (that's the breaks kid!) but am told :) that the prime rib was awesome as well as all of the other fantastic foods Angie Clutter and her staff had prepared for this dinner show.  The band sounded amazing as always (Thank you Bill Grahama, Josh & Mike for all of your hard work on sound!) and sadly, the time flies!!! Big plans are already underway for next year, the 5th year anniversary of "Home For Christmas".  Stay tuned!

 

From here, made a special appearance at the St. Clairsville's Rotary Club Luncheon, where long-time friend Richard Ferrell received a special award for his outstanding service to the club and to his community.  Bravo Rich! So nice to see my wonderful accountant James Kacsmar, former WTRF-TV7 Station Manager Frank Curtis, Jeanette Williams and many many others.  Happy to sing for these wonderful folks who give so much of their time and energy to their neighbours.  Pianist Matt McTeague accompanied me here and did a wonderful job as always.  Hope to see you all again in 2007! 

 

Carrie Oliver and I repeated our fundraising efforts in song at St. Paul's Church in Weirton, WV.  Thanks to an enthusiastic crowd, we were able to raise about $500.00 for their community breadbasket in about an hour.  Always a joy to sing Andrea Boccelli's "The Prayer" with Carrie, as well as so many of our favourite Christmas songs.  Carrie has a version of "O Holy Night" that'll knock your socks off.  She is enjoying fantastic success with the release of her own holiday CD this season.  I've listened to it cover-to-cover many times and it sounds great!  Check it out at:  http://www.myspace.com/carrieoliver 

 

From here, I trekked southward to Charleston, WV to attend the West Virginia Governor's Ball with journalist Janet Metzner.   It was a grand affair and I was happy to sign a CD and hand deliver it to Governor "Giuseppe" Joe Manchin, another fine Italian in WV.  He and his wife Gayle threw a lovely party and Janet and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  Ran into many Wheeling folks there, including Erin & Pete Cuffaro, Dino Figaretti & his father, former neighbour and now Columbus resident Mary (Long) & Rich Heslop, Russell & Mary Lou Hutchins, plus Russ's brother Tal Hutchins and his lovely wife.  I am forgetting some names here because I shook literally thousands of hands that evening!  What a nice surprise to meet Senator Roman Prezioso of Marion County and his wife...Great to talk about Italy with them.  Now, talk about small worlds...I met Michael Yura, Senior Vice President of the National Biometric Security Project and his wife, who were telling me about their son Chris, who is also a model and actor living in New York City.  After only a few minutes of speaking, I realized I had met their son two years earlier on a casting call we were both on for a designer. Chris had only been in New York a few days I believe.  You just NEVER know who you will run into at these events!  Also, a pleasure to meet Scott Rotruck, who is Director of Corporate Development with Chesapeake Natural Gas.  Scott has held many positions in the state and I think, knew just about everyone in the room! 

 

Well, that's it for now...getting ready to sing Christmas Day Mass at 9:30am with my long time friend, Sister Alicia Marie Weiskircher.  Talk about a Holy Weekend coming up....I believe my Goddaughter Olivia Bailer is doing one of the readings in the Children's Mass on Christmas Eve at 4:30pm....my brand new nephew Andrew Mark is the Baby Jesus at the 7pm Mass (you're never TOO young to get into the act, eh? haha) and then of course, Christmas morning...Here's wishing  you all a truly BLESSED Christmas!

 

 

 

 

 

Well, talk about being in the right place at the right time...Here I was eating dinner with my friends Lewis Matheney and Gary Lee at this awesome Ukranian restaurant "Veselka" in the west village in Manhattan, when in walked a crew from the Food Network.  They were shooting segments for Rachael Ray's Food & Travel show on the Food Network and asked if it would be ok to ask me a few questions about the food.  Me, being the shy, withdrawn wallflower that I am, of course said "YES!" and then wondered why I didn't have a copy of my new CD "Miracle" surgically attached to my face at the time.  The producer interviewed me as I was eating a bowl of split-pea soup.  They also got me chomping on a meal of cabbage rolls (not the Italian kind, which I love, covered in tomato sauce) but rather in a traditional Ukranian mushroom sauce, which tasted phenomenal!  Being a somewhat fussy eater (difficult as my mother might say) I was pleasantly surprised! I liked it!  My friends cracked-up when I took a bite and mugged to the camera and said something in Italian about the food to Racheal...and the photographer was like, um, don't say that.  It wasn't that I said anything wrong, but that it was a segment on Ukranian food, not Italian food and they wanted to keep it focused. *sigh, well, it was a fun experience!  I'll let you know when it airs...some time this summer the producer said.  Hey Rachael, have your people call my people, we'll do soup!