Pietro Frosini (9 August 1885 – 2 September 1951) was one of the first famous "stars of the

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...

." He was born in

Catania Catania (, , Sicilian and ) is the second largest municipality in Sicily, after Palermo. Despite its reputation as the second city of the island, Catania is the largest Sicilian conurbation, among the largest in Italy, as evidenced also by ...

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

, in 1885 and began to play the

chromatic button accordion A chromatic button accordion is a type of button accordion where the melody-side keyboard consists of rows of buttons arranged chromatically. The bass-side keyboard is usually the Stradella system or one of the various free-bass systems. Incl ...

at the age of six. In 1905 he emigrated to

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

and was discovered by a talent scout for the Orpheum

Vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...

Circuit. Frosini made one of the first accordion recordings on a cylinder record for Edison in 1907 and made his first Victor recording in 1908. He traveled extensively on the vaudeville circuit in America and abroad and even performed for the King of England. On the vaudeville circuit, Frosini met and became friends with another great accordionist,

Guido Deiro Count Guido Pietro Deiro (1 September 1886 – 26 July 1950) was a famous vaudeville star, international recording artist, composer and teacher. He was the first piano-accordionist to appear on big-time vaudeville, records, radio and the screen. ...

. After seeing the great success Deiro had with his audiences, Frosini adopted some of Deiro's methods: (1) he began playing popular music along with classical and operatic selections, and (2) he pasted a dummy piano accordion keyboard over his buttons, as audiences wanted to hear the more novel and unfamiliar

piano accordion A piano accordion is an accordion equipped with a right-hand keyboard similar to a piano or organ. Its acoustic mechanism is more that of an organ than a piano, as they are both aerophones, but the term "piano accordion"—coined by Guido Deiro ...

. Frosini gave up vaudeville in 1932 when the "

talkies A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed before ...

" closed most vaudeville companies; he then became a staff accordionist for WOR radio in New York, a position he held until his death in 1951. Throughout his career, he performed, taught, composed and arranged music for the accordion. He wrote more than 200 original compositions for the instrument. Today there is a "Frosini Society" based in Sweden which was established in 1984 by Swedish accordionist Lars Ek."Pietro Frosini: Dragspelets Trollkarl" by Gunnar M. Ohlander (Gotlands Allehanda, Sweden: 1990)

References

External links

Frosini Society
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* ttp://ransater.hosterspace.com/dragspelsexpo/?p=1159 Autographed photo of Pietro Frosiniinscribed to accordionist

Arvid Franzen Arvid Franzen (1899–1961) was a Swedish-born accordionist and bandleader, whose live performances and numerous recordings made him a household name in Scandinavian communities throughout the United States. Career A native of Gothenburg, Swede ...

;Discography
Pietro Frosini
on

Victor Records The Victor Talking Machine Company was an American recording company and phonograph manufacturer that operated independently from 1901 until 1929, when it was acquired by the Radio Corporation of America and subsequently operated as a subsidi ...

. ;Streaming audio
Pietro Frosini
on

Edison Records Edison Records was one of the early record labels that pioneered sound recording and reproduction, and was an important player in the early recording industry. The first phonograph cylinders were manufactured in 1888, followed by Edison's founda ...

.
Pietro Frosini
at the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

. ;Videos * * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Frosini, Pietro American accordionists Vaudeville performers Polka musicians American male songwriters Italian emigrants to the United States Italian accordionists 1885 births 1951 deaths 20th-century accordionists 20th-century American male musicians