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FOR ALL INFORMATION AND BROCHURES FOR THE NW FESTIVAL IN BLACKPOOL31 O1253 778764 01253 822046
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Bruno loved finding new facets to the instrument and developing its application to the ever changing face of music. By then his ability was consummate and it saw him as one of the first to embrace technology by fitting the electronics of the Cordovox and Duovox etc. onto customers’ preferred traditional accordions. Right from those earliest days, he built accordions for himself and his two sons from scratch and these are still displayed at Emilio’s shop in South London. He was an extremely decent and moral man with strong, good, honest principles. The people that helped and carved the eventual path of his life were never forgotten. He did all he could to repay their kindness by whatever means were available to him at the time. Rina and Bruno would go back and forth over the years to Italy to revisit their friends and family and it was on one such instance, that Bruno all but lost his sight. He had been diagnosed with mild diabetes some years earlier and this had up till then been successfully controlled; however this all changed from 1995. For a man whose heart pumped on the adrenaline of creativity, this was a complete body blow. Yet again, through sheer determination, he adapted. His inventiveness meant that he still made things, he still played, he still built things but it took him a lot longer; He never gave up. For family and friends and the accordion world in general, his passing will leave a huge void; already we feel a quietness that we had not previously known. Bruno had great intuity and compassion. His mind never dulled and his interest in music never waned. He would spend hours practising and listening to music. He would watch videos of old or up and coming Italian players and would take apart their performances in an effort to learn from them himself - all this still happening in his eighties and nineties! He never stopped learning; right up until he died, he strove to learn a piece of music with the most complicated of arrangements. It wasn’t enough for him to just bash out a melody. He wanted to really get into the harmonics of the piece and his blindness was a source of great frustration to him as it limited his ability to read new musical scores. Bruno always used a 120 bass instrument as the music he played such as Rossini Overtures, Frosini’s Carnival of Venice and the like demanded the full range of notes. It was only failing health and not enough strength to push the bellows that prevented him from achieving much more than he felt he had. It is hard to estimate the extent of Bruno’s contribution to the accordion world. He was very proud of his shop and happy in North London from the 1960s right up until he moved to Lewisham in 2001. It wasn’t great fortunes he sought when he began, just enough to support his family. He was so content there; repairing; fitting microphones electronics, MIDI and making his sales and he proved very popular and trusted with accordionists from all over the country who came to call him ‘the maestro’ because his skill was second to none and his love of the instrument was so contagious. He was the choice of so many professional top accordionists when their instruments gave them trouble; the list is huge, Marcosignori, Micky Binelli, Edward Hessian, Dermot O’Brien, Henry Krien to name but a few. Both sons took up the accordion but ultimately took different directions as their chosen careers. Bruno was equally proud of both of them and their achievements. Claudio became a professional musician and accordion teacher and Emilio followed in Bruno’s footsteps and opened his branch of the business in Lewisham in 1978. He was always there as guide and mentor and with his unlimited knowledge of instrument designs was a huge help to Emilio back in those early days as he gained his own experience and confidence. When Rina passed away in 2003, Bruno was heart broken. They had been such a team for so many years. Now, he will be re-united with her at last and as sad as we are that we must say goodbye, the thought that they are together again is the best one of all. As his family, we will miss him so very much but for sure his death is a sad and huge loss to the accordion world as a whole, as has been evident from the hundreds of messages of condolence we’ve already received.
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