Saturday - August 7: The 14th Annual Italian-American Festival concluded this past Saturday evening after three days of friendship, good food, fun and fantastic musical entertainment. Each night saw bigger and bigger crowds. We were leery about how this year's attendance would be so soon on the heels of the All-Class Reunion. We even suggested to some SOI officials they invest some money into paid advertisements for that reason. Our worries were for naught. From our view point it was a very successful festival.
Day 3 started out with the awarding of the two $1,000 scholarships that the SOI Lodge gives out each year. See our post below.
Saturday's entertainment was superb. It started off with 23 year old Nashville recording talent and Hammondsville native Molly Sue Gonzales. That young lady has developed into quite an artist. We first saw Molly at the age of four singing "Achey, Breaky Heart" on a neighbor's back porch. She first appeared at the Wellsville festival at age eight and has been a frequent visitor over the years. Man that girl can belt out a tune.
Her singing a duet with Aaron Caruso midway through his show just proves what an amazing voice she has. They sang "The Prayer" and we can honestly say that Celine Dione has at least an equal. We along with many others thought it was the high light of the festival. Molly concentrates on Country Western but with the beautiful voice she displayed singing that duet we think she can branch out in opera. Wow!
Detroit area native Aaron Caruso followed Gonzales. He's an accomplished Italian tenor that never forgets his friends at the Wellsville SOI. He says he's been singing at the festival for 13 years and his buddy Joe LaScola said it's been closer to 11. Whichever it is we always eagerly look forward to his performance. Caruso now lives in the NYC area and has sang Carnegie Hall since last year. He travels the country from California to Las Vegas and up and down the east coast. As a way to say thank-you, to what he claims got him started as an entertainer, he always makes time to return each year for the festival. He even passed up an extremely well paying gig in Massachusetts to appear in the vile this year according to LaScola. With his youthful good looks, easy smile, humor and enormous singing talent there's a lot of ladies in the audience drooling just over the thought of playing ying to his yang. From traditional Italian songs, to opera, to Dean Martin and Sinatra tunes he has the talent to satisfied the most critical of any listener.
We would like to say thanks to the officers and members of SOI Lodge 657 for once again giving us a very fun filled festival. All your hard work and efforts are very much appreciated. There were many that enjoyed all three evenings.
Is there any left over Italian steak sandwiches?
ole nib
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