Maestro Alex Chiapanelli

I started piano lessons at 5 yrs old.   Originally a friend of my mothers...it didn't go very far, so my mother moved me up to a very eminent Newark piano teacher:    Alex Chiapanelli, referred to by us as Maestro Maestro .   I think he liked me, but he was very old school.   I would definitely progress in technique.   He did not threaten or hit with a ruler, but he leaned over me with horrible garlic breathe and I was terrified of him....totally.   My first recital, I played some piece that had something to do with going up in an airplane.   So before I started to play, I had to say "contact."   as in how they started the old planes.   I was sharp enough to know this was small kid stuff and be embarassed by it.   Still I went along.   I was pretty proud at this first recital and got a lot of positive attention...not the last time in my piano life.

Maestro Chiapanelli had an old house on Holmstead Place, a rare cul de sac a block or two from Hawthorn Ave.   He had the world's biggest piano.   It went on forever....really like an ocean liner.   Parents had to sit outside in the parlor while the lesson went on.   We were also required to take theory lessons from one of the Maestro's young adult daughters.   She was tall, dark, and also scary.

Well I learned a lot of piano, but no much music.   My mother (dancer, violinist) could see I could win competitions but not play musically, so she moved me on to my life long piano mentor, Milton Peckarsky.   I'll tell more about him in another blog.