Date of birth: 16 March 1916
Place of birth: San Severo, province of Foggia
Arrived in Australia: 2 February 1956
My father was a guitarist and he also knew how to play the mandolin. My grandfather, his father, also played the violin, so music was hereditary in our house.
When I reached my tenth birthday, I asked [my father] if I could learn some music. He was surprised when he heard [this] because back then, it was better to elarn a trade rather than a profession. He asked me which instrument I would like to play – I liked the trombone because of its almost human expression. As you can see he didn’t stop me, but he always used to say, ‘Your schooling must always come before music.’ So he enrolled me in the local music school.
Before I took up the instrument, I wanted to learn the theoory, the essential base.
[After a year of theory] I took up the trombone.
When I learnt the treble clef, it was natural for me to learn the mandolin. Back then there were orchestras called Orchestre Pletro1, as you see here. I am seated fourth from the left.
There is no age limit for orchestra members, because there are many talented young people and when the older musicians see a young man who is actively interested in music, they encourage you and that encouragement makes you even keener to learn.
When I was fourteen years old, I began to tour with the bands.
When one has begun to understand music well and has begun to interpret it, he cannot stay away from it – particularly if you pick it up at a young age.
So anyway, always keeping the company of talented players, because the company young people keep, is very important, I also started to study the classical guitar. [However] I wanted to concentrate more on the trombone because with that I made my living.
[But] whoever becomes involved in the artistic field, he doesn’t do it so much for the money but rather for the love of his art. This is why artists never make millions, they can’t.
After the Second World War, you couldn’t do much with music. People were left completely naked, with bare feet as it were, they had to figure out ways to provide food [for themselves]. [So] I decided to come to australia.
I came here on my own, with the intention of staring a few years. As soon as I arrived the paesani1 began to spread the word, so I bagan to teach right away.
I also put together this orchestra, I’m on the left. You couldn’t find any Italian musicians, so I decided to start using Australian musicians, without my speaking a word of English. Whenever I took on the australian musicians, I would always ask the musicians’ union. they were good however – they always finished on time.
I hired a small hall in Northcote, for dances on Saturday nights. The halls weren’t like they are today, there was dusting to do – just think, in the kitchen there was only water taps.
[Then] the Italians started to throng and gradually I began to substitute the Australian musicians with whoever I could find. When I started with the Italians, they never finshed on time.
My orchestra was called Odeon and I disbanded it at the end of ’69.
I was alone for eighteen months. I lived a pretty tough life. I had travelled Italy but when you go abroad, outside, you know, your own country, outside Europe, you can really feel the absence of the family. I didn’t believe it. As a child I travelled with the bands but I was always in my own country. But to leave it! I had never felt the homesickness I felt when I boarded ship. then the family arrived. I had four children.
The first years were terrible. I remember when my children arrived, when they saw themselves separated from their relatives, for a couple of months they used to talk in their sleep; they’d call out to their friends, uncles and aunts, grandparents, and if you woke up in the middle of the night, you couldn’t go back to sleep.
[When I arrived in australia I] stayed with a family from Foggia. Their son took me around to look for a job. I found work in this shoe factory in clifton Hill. It happened [that] in this factory, I was the only foreigner.
So during the day I worked in the factory and in the afternoon I taught [music]. these are some of my students.
I’ve always kept up with the school because there’s a wide range of instruments – look at them – and the children. [sometimes though] the parents imposed on their children to learn the instruments the parents wanted, and this is wrong because the children didn’t do well, because they were forced to come.
I produced some fine musicians. When I first began I was lucky enough to produce a good accordian-player. I worked with many communities and amongst them I came across two Greek children who were really talented – now they are studying at the conservatorium.
I had the material [to work with] – I never took people who didn’t do well from the beginning, money never interested me.
On the radio [in Italy] they used to have English lessons and I sent for the book. During the trip on board ship, they also gave us lessons. But in that period we were preocuppied, things weren’t going well in Italy.
Now I learn the lessons by heart because these days I’m more serene. But then everything was different.
Now I’m happy with my home, my pension, I live and I feel good with everything I’ve done.
[I came here because] in fact the boom in Italy didn’t occur until 1962 and in 1962 if we had been there we would have failed. Because, if at a certain age you don’t offer children the right path to take, the poor kids would be ruined.
[Instead now] they are adults, they are all professionals, you know, I’ve taken care of them. You don’t make it rich with music and anyhow, people who love art don’t look for things like that.
1 Plettro – plectrum
2 paesani – fellow townsfolk
Source: ‘1985. Brunswick City Council. For a better life we came’. Collected and edited by the Brunswick Oral History Project. Copies available for lending and sale at Moreland City Libraries (Brunswick) ph 9389 8600. Images taken after 1955 are available in the print publication. Original images available in exhibition boxes in storage at Brunswick Library.