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My love for music began as a small child listening to Mitch Miller, Ray Conniff, Keeley Smith & Louis Prima, and Louis Armstrong.

I remember the first time my parents took me to the NYS Fairgrounds in 1965, I was 7 years old. I heard Lionel Hampton playing Flying Home on the Xylophone. He was superb.

My Love for Theatre organ began shortly afterwards watching Bob Ralston playing the 3 Manual Thomas organ on the Lawrence Welk show. I started playing my Godmothers organ at her house when I was 9 yrs. old. In 1969, I asked my father to take me to North Syracuse Music after he came home from work one day. I told him that I wanted to play the organ just like Bob Ralston. My parents bought me a used Wurlitzer Spinet organ. The store manager, Mr. Robert Tringali highly recommended that I take lessons from Karl Cole who was the house organist at the RKO’Keefe Theatre in downtown Syracuse, NY. Karl was also a former representative for the Wurlitzer company for four years. I studied with Karl Cole for six years starting May 1969 until May 1975. I attended nursing school in fall of 1975 and returned to playing the organ after a 41-year hiatus.

My instructors that I have studied with are, Robert Carbone from the Piano & Organ Center for 3 1/2 yrs. in North Syracuse, NY and John Paul Fiscoe who is the house organist at the Capitol Theatre in Rome, NY for the past 7 years.

I played my first 3 manual theatre pipe organ concert at the fairgrounds on Sept 3, 2017, in the Empire Theatre and continue to play organ concerts until the present time. I have also played in three fundraiser concerts for Friends of Syracuse Wurlitzer here at the fair in May 2018, September 2019, and June 2024.

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