When Sam Donze passed away, many, many comments were posted on the “Italians From The Northside of Syracuse” Facebook group.  Everyone loved Sam and the wonderful sausage he continued to make out of the storefront that his immigrant parents, Mariano and Antonina Donze, opened at 618 North Townsend Street where they lived. I asked my childhood friend Donna Maurillo, who grew ...

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Norman Lebrecht’s CDs of the Week: music of Mieczyslaw Weinberg, including his 3rd, 6th and 20th Symphonies; his Cello Concerto; and chamber music for woodwinds!

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By CIAO! Co-host  Joey Nigro-Nilsen For our Mother’s Day show, Jim and I will talk about the special place “mother” has in all of our hearts and share a few humorous stories about how Italian mothers in Italy spoil their children, especially the boys. The link below from a Wall Street Journal article was given to us last year by Mike Hennigan.  ...

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Saturday, May 12th at 1 P.M., Classic FM finishes up the 2011-12  Metropolitan Opera season with the recent National Council Grand Finals concert, featuring the opera stars of the future! Your hosts will be Met broadcast host Margaret Juntwait and former National Council Auditions winner and star Met bass-baritone Eric Owens. The finalists will perform with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, ...

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                            Hello, everyone–nice to see ya, as always, and a Happy Mother’s Day to all the jazz-loving moms out there.  Ella Fitzgerald (mother of drummer Ray Brown, Jr., by the way) will be featured this Mother’s Day at 5 P.M. on “The Sounds of Jazz!”  We’ll be hearing Ella with Jazz at the Philharmonic, along with lots of other jazz to make ...

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Norman Lebrecht’s CDs of the Week from La Scena Musicale: the first recording of Philip Glass’ 9th Symphony, plus Beethoven CDs by pianists Jeremy Denk, Andreas Steier, and Stephen Osborne!

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CIAO! SCORES A FIRST WITH NEIL SEDAKA’S ITALIAN RECORDINGS!–by Joey Nigro Neil Sedaka has composed more than a thousand songs from the time he was a teenager with his first hit in 1958, “Stupid Cupid,” written for Connie Francis.  He has sold over 60 million records, won a Grammy and been inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. It should come ...

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Richard Probert is a man of many interests and talents (entrepreneurship, sailing, furniture building, et al…), but it seems his first love is music. He stopped-by the WCNY-FM studios on Wednesday for a “Live at Noon” chat about the production of Elijah by Mendelssohn building around him and the Sackets Harbor Vocal Arts Ensemble and the Trinity Episcopal Choir & ...

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