User:GRuban/Sam Falcetti

Anselmo A. "Sam" Falcetti is an American musician and entrepreneur. He started Falcetti Music, a chain of businesses teaching music and selling instruments, in Massachusetts and Connecticut, which he ran for 50 years, before retiting and passing it on to his family. His personal specialty is the accordion, which he taught personally, popularized, and directed in orchestras, both before and after retirement from the stores.

Early life

Anselmo A. "Sam" Falcetti was born and grew up in Westfield, Massachusetts. His father, Anselmo J. Falcetti, died from a shotgun accident when Falcetti was three; he had played the accordion. Falcetti began studying the accordion at the age of 10, and by the age of 16, was teaching it. He met his future wife, Peggy, née Margaret Terault, as one of his students, while he was working his way through college as an accordion teacher. Falcetti earned a bachelor's degree from the Hartt School of Music in Connecticut, in Music Theory and Composition in 1957.

Falcetti Music

Falcetti opened his first store in Westfield on February 22, 1957, as a college senior, with a $50 loan from his mother, Rose Falcetti Baker, who also served as the receptionist, saying she had to be sure she got her $50 back. He taught music and sold instruments; at first, only the accordion, under the name Westfield Accordion Center. He added other instruments later, and changed the name to Falcetti Music. Peggy became his secretary, and they married as they opened their second location in Indian Orchard, Springfield, Massachusetts in 1959. By 1963, the teaching business had also expanded to Enfield, Connecticut; in 1979, a retail store was opened at the Holyoke Mall at Ingleside; and in 1988 another retail store was added in the Berkshire Mall.

After Sam Falcetti's retirement on New Year's Day 2008, Falcetti Music included five store locations managed by son Anthony Falcetti, and music schools based in the stores run by son Michael Falcetti. In 2016, the business expanded to Falcetti Pianos, with locations in Springfield and Natick, Massachusetts, which did piano sales, lessons, and maintenance, with contracts with universities in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire. In 2022, the Connecticut teaching location moved to Simsbury, Connecticut, where it shared a location with the Playhouse Theatre Academy, run by Tracy Flater, Tony Falcetti's wife. By 2023, the businesses included Northeast Piano Movers, headquartered in Springfield, and Falcetti Pianos had an additional store in Nashua, New Hampshire; the combined Falcetti Companies had 70 full and part-time employees. Falcetti School of Music classes included bass, brass, drums, guitar, percussion, piano, strings, vocals, woodwinds, and audio engineering. In 2024, the Falcetti Companies ventured outside New England for the first time by opening a Falcetti Pianos store in Nashville, Tennessee.

Music education and outreach

In 1962, Sam and Peggy Falcetti were two of the first eight Accordion Teachers Association of Massachusetts members who founded the annual New England Music Festival, originally for accordion competition, but branching into piano, guitar, bass, drums, and voice. Peggy Falcetti was the festival director for 35 years through 2012.

Falcetti continued to teach accordion classes both through his stores, and as an adjunct professor at Westfield State University and Holyoke Community College in the 1970s and 80s. He was named head of the Holyoke Community College Accordion Department in 1975, and the Holyoke Community College Accordion Ensemble that he directed played Carnegie Hall in 1979.

In 1979, Falcetti was elected vice president of the American Accordionists' Association; at the same time, Peggy Falcetti served as vice president of the Massachusetts Accordion Teachers Association.

The Falcetti family also supported music education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, which named the Bezanson Recital Hall lobby after them in 2003. Starting in 2008, Falcetti and his wife Peggy co-sponsored the Falcetti Music Foundation which awards up to five $1000 annual scholarships for high school seniors from Hampden and Hampshire Massachusetts counties and from Enfield, Connecticut and surrounding communities (the areas served by the Springfield and Enfield stores) who are pursuing a music degree in a Massachusetts or Connecticut college or university. FalcettiFest, sponsored by Falcetti Music, has been an annual musical event in August in Wilbraham, Massachusetts since 2008.

Orchestras

Record cover for The Springfield Accordion Orchestra – The Newest Sound In Sight, 1971

In 1969, Falcetti formed the Springfield Accordion Orchestra, for young musicians (averaging 16 years old) from western Massachusetts and northern Connecticut. The Orchestra toured Japan for two weeks in 1970, in conjunction with the World's Fair in Osaka, appeared on the David Frost Show with Roberta Flack in 1971, toured another two weeks in northern Italy in 1973, performed in Washington D.C. and Walt Disney World in 1976, and in Hawaii and New Zealand at the Coupe Mondiale world competition in 1980. They released their first record, a compilation, "The Newest Sound in Sight" in 1971, and "The Wanderer", composed specifically for the Orchestra, with Pauline Oliveros as soloist, in 1984.

In May 2008, Falcetti was presented a FR-7 digital accordion by Roland Corporation founder Ikutaro Kakehashi and Roland US President Dennis Houlihan in Anaheim, California. In October 2011, Falcetti was selected as a judge at the 5th Annual Roland V Accordion International Festival in Rome, Italy. At this event, Falcetti became convinced that this new instrument, that can duplicate the sounds of other instruments, from saxophone to cello, was perfect for creating a digital accordion orchestra. He founded the New England Accordion Orchestra, with members' ages ranging from teens to sixties, in January 2013; it was the first digital accordion orchestra in the country. In 2015, the Orchestra opened for Deana Martin and Bobby Rydell in Enfield, Connecticut. In November 2019, Falcetti was named the International Digital Electronic Accordion Society's first lifetime faculty scholar.