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Three Questions: Mark Gionfriddo

Three Questions: Mark Gionfriddo mark-gionfriddo-in-the-big-broadcast-22-copy.jpg
Mark Gionfriddo as “Matt Morgan” in “The Big Broadcast”.

PRIME submitted photo

PRIME – March 2015 Director, Mt. Holyoke College Jazz Ensembles and “The Big Broadcast” By Debbie Gardner debbieg@thereminder.com Holyoke native and Mount Holyoke College Jazz Ensemble Director Mark Gionfriddo has played a lot of music in his life. The much-sought-after performer and conductor began studying the piano when he was just four years of age, and performed in his first concert a mere two years later. By 12 years of age, he’d come up with the idea for his first musical production. “I had a band called The Entertainers,” Gionfriddo said, recalling how he’d heard an arts group in Holyoke was promoting a concert featuring local youth bands. “The first thing I thought was, ‘that would be really cool’.” The year was 1973, and the movie, “The Sting” featuring the music of ragtime composer Scott Joplin, was all the rage. Gionfriddo decided his band – which included buddies playing clarinet, drums and trumpet – would perform a selection of Joplin rags at the concert. His piano teacher, on the other hand “was amused that I was a kid who wanted to do all this arranging,” Gionfriddo said. His teacher showed him how to put the songs in the proper keys for each instrument, and Gionfriddo hand-wrote the sheet music – “there were no computers in those days” – for his first show. Thousands of performances later – including stints as accompanists for Mitzi Gaynor and Garrison Keillor of “A Prairie Home Companion” fame – Gionfriddo is preparing for another original concert, the 10th edition of Mount Holyoke College Jazz Ensemble’s “The Big Broadcast” on March 8. Late last month, PRIME chatted with Gionfriddo about the popular homage to 1940s live radio shows, and his musical career. Q — After 10 years, how do you keep “The Big Broadcast” fresh? “I have a rotating list of songs that I want to do and every year. I try to pick songs we haven’t done before [or] things that we haven’t done for a long time. Some stuff [comes] from being a fan of the Andrew Sisters and some is novelty stuff that there would have been in a 1940s radio show. This particular Big Broadcast we’re touting as the greatest hits of the last 10 years. There is a little bit of nostalgia for me this year; we’ve done this show for 10 years and I’ve seen it take off and evolve. I thought it would be interesting to bring back things we’ve done. Some [numbers] the audience may recognize. But not everything is something that we’ve done before, [and] the commercials are things that the students have come up with. They have a blast doing all this stuff. They are actually a lot more savvy than you think they would be about this [era], they are constantly on YouTube and sending me suggestions. When it comes to the program, I was a fan of [the play] “Noises Off” when I was a student at Williston [and] I thought it was cool to have a fake program on one side and real on the other [of a playbill]. When we were putting together the “Big Broadcast” I thought, ‘Wow, we could do the same thing, and the audience is in on the joke.’ So, our program is part joke, part fact [every year]. On one side you have [my fictitious name] Matt Morgan and Radio Station WJAZ and the fake names of the student actors. On the other side, the real names of the bands and musicians. I’ve also been working with the Berkshire Theater Group (BTG) [in Pittsfield, Mass.]. We’re taking the show to their Colonial Theater this year. It’s the first time we’re touring the show and it’s very exciting for me. I’m excited to bring it to The Colonial because it is such a beautiful theater and the BTG is such a wonderful nonprofit group. ” [The concert is a benefit for the BTG] Q — You seem to really enjoy doing “The Big Broadcast” every year. Does the music hold some special draw for you? “I’ve always been interested in The Great American songbook. Take for example, “Love Is Here To Stay,” by George and Ira Gershwin – from one of their musicals. As a jazz pianist – I was the house pianist at the Delaney House when it reopened [in 1989] – that is one of the tunes I would have played.” Q — Beyond Mt. Holyoke, your career has led you to cross paths with several famous individuals. Can you tell us about that? “When I was a kid in the mid 1970s, Ken Capurso, music director for WHYN, also managed talent and he got me a lot of opportunities to meet people. Liberace was one of those people. He contacted Liberace’s manager [Seymour Heller] because at that time Liberace did concerts at Storrowton Theater and one of those years I actually got to meet him. A couple of years later I auditioned for Liberace when he was performing in Rhode Island; he was looking for an act to play while he took a break. I was considered, but he took a wonderful banjo player instead. Liberace was so wonderful, very sweet and very kind. He really made you feel he was just a regular person. You were always in awe of him – for God’s sake he was dripping in diamonds – and he was just like the guy next door. Mitzi Gaynor came through for a guest appearance; I think it had something to do with Turner Classic Movies or American Movie Classics – one of the cable movie channels. I got to work with her when she came to Springfield, and she was the same [as Liberace], very kind and very sweet. The most recent famous person I worked with was Garrison Keillor. He came to Mount Holyoke to do a show back in early 2000s. He was such a nice person. He had his own dressing room and I had my dressing room and being Garrison Keillor, he was showered with food and everything he could need. He knocked on my door and said ‘Hey Mark, come [over] I have all this food and I can’t eat it all myself.’ He was working on Lake Woebegone at the time – it was on a Mac laptop – and he showed me a couple of pages. He was just a great human being; a great person to have a conversation with. Let me talk about the celebrity I met this past Saturday [Jan. 31]. I’ve been working with the Berkshire Theater Group for a couple of summers and we were doing auditions for their summer community show [that day]. Because of the snow, I showed up a little late and when I arrived there were two people on the stage with the chorographer and director and I’m looking at these two people … one of them is the actress Karen Allen … I remember her as being in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” The wonderful thing about this business, you never know who you are going to meet or who you are going to have a conversation with.” Bookmark and Share