Somewhere among the terabytes, there is a passenger manifest from 1999 for a flight from London to the Vietnam-China border. On that flight was a couple and strapped into the seat beside them ”“ a full-price seat bought and paid for with coin of the realm ”“ was their bouncing bundle of joy, an accordion.
Mario Tacca”™s accordions had always fit in the overheads. He was crowned world champion at Carnegie Hall in 1962 and had been performing internationally for decades. But the airline agent was adamant. The accordion would have to buy a seat. And it did.
Mary Mancini, meantime, was at an impasse with the same agent over the carry-on with the sheet music for her, for her husband Mario Tacca and for the entire regional Chinese symphony with whom they would perform. The case was too big.
While Tacca attended to getting his accordion properly seated, Mancini and their tour assistant scrambled to stuff the nut of the entire venture ”“ the music itself on hard copy pages ”“ into whatever lesser-sized bags were available.
Mancini said, “And this was 1999 ”“ security wasn”™t like it is today.”
As for the coddled accordion, Tacca said: “When the flight crew saw the instrument, they said there was plenty of room in the overheads, but I said as long as we paid we would strap it in and there it sat the whole trip.”
The couple performs 200 shows per year ”“ 150 together. They make a comfortable living at their art, they said, but the sweat equity in such a schedule is evident. They produce and sell their own CDs at gioiaproductions.com, setting the bar impossibly high for the self-produced rockers practicing in a garage near you.
On June 22, Mancini and Tacca headlined the Abruzzi Earthquake Benefit Show, which included Philadelphia”™s City Rhythm Orchestra, comedian Floyd Vivino and singer Steve Ritrovato, at the Paramount Center for the Arts in Peekskill, earning $19,000 toward helping the central Italian region leveled by earthquakes in April.
Their costumes are custom made and, given the variety of music they perform, must be appropriate for the musical gamut: from weekly performances at the Church of the Assumption in Peekskill to international shows with an 80-piece orchestra, and from cabaret to sacred. “I have a huge wardrobe of two-piece things, one-piece things, short dresses, long dresses,” said Mancini. “It keeps me on my toes.” His clothes, too, are custom and he is known for his hat to the degree he was at least on one occasion not recognized without it.
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The cost for performances varies: $700 to $20,000, plus whatever air fair costs. The cost depends on who is along for the show, as with a coming Italian tour with the 10-member City Rhythm Orchestra, and what musical preparations are required. A second Abruzzi earthquake concert has been woven into this year”™s October Italy tour ”“ the couple”™s third such venture ”“ to help the 26 towns that were devastated; Mancini and Tacca will perform that show as a duet after the other band members have returned to the states.
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Mancini and Tacca perform in regular shows at the Magnanini Winery in Wallkill, sometimes with Tacca playing solo, sometimes as a couple. He plays there most Saturdays; she joined him Aug. 2 and will do so again Sept. 20. (Complete schedule at magwine.com.) Their play list runs from “Evita” to “Ave Maria.”
“We”™ve been married 34 years,” Mancini said, “and we”™ve been doing this for 34 years; maybe 15 years at this magnitude of performance. We have a good solid network of performers who work with us ”“ everything from trios to larger configurations.”
Tacca owns three accordions, all chromatic button variety (as opposed to the piano keys seen on some accordions), all Italian and all custom made. Times being what they are, the instruments have electronics woven into them, including small LCD readouts that make the instruments ”“ iced with mother-of-pearl ”“ light-years from their sea-shanty origins. “Most of the Europeans use the button accordion,” the Italy-born Tacca said. His models vary; two are fully electronic, one partially so. “The one I”™m holding ”“” the partially electronic model “”“ has a range of five octaves.” For songs accompanying his wife where the accordion is inappropriate, Tacca also plays the piano and one sits prominently in their Crompond living room; the recording studio is in the basement.
Mary is a coloratura soprano “The typical soprano is B-flat on the staff to basically a C above the staff. I do everything from an F below the staff ”“ that”™s where I do my French music, where I get into the chest register, which would be more like a contralto ”“ to D above. But I”™m by training an absolute coloratura (colorful) soprano.”
She has been called “the woman with the golden voice” and there is no shortage of testimonials to her singing talent or to his skill with the accordion. But a testimonial is just that ”“ words. Mancini and Tacca have something of a living testimonial in the form of their manager Robert Robinson.
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Robinson had not expected ever to fill such a position, failing even to count himself a big music fan and comfortable with his real job as an executive assistant. “Classical” is his terse response to musical interests and he does not elaborate. But in December three years ago in the Church of the Assumption, Tacca”™s and Mancini”™s rendition of Mozart”™s “Exsultate Jubilate” changed all that. “They changed my life,” he said.
Robinson, in turn, credits the couple with revitalizing a town in the Leatherstocking Region, Walton in Delaware County, where he grew up.
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“When I heard them, I knew I had to share them; they so touched my heart,” he said. He signed on, unpaid, to manage transportation, advertising, interviews, venue scheduling, graphics and sponsorships, which he now does out of love for the music. “They have changed the small town of Walton and brought love there through their music,” he said.
“They healed relationships and in a sense they”™re healing the town. They took time to perform at the hospital there, sharing their music with patients; it had such an impact.”
The Italy tours are arranged in conjunction with Bloomfield, N.J.-based ABC Music Tours. The logistics might seem overwhelming ”“ remember that China flight ”“ but Mancini said, “We pretty much have it down to a science now.”
The couple has three children and six grandchildren.
