The President’s Message

Tony Mustaro

Dear Friends,

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of you a very happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year.

We ended the club’s year of 2013 on a high note with a very well-attended ACR Christmas Dinner Dance. The food for this occasion came from Lombardi Catering right here in Petaluma and we all were very pleased with the dinners they prepared for our event. That dinner was greatly complemented by the excellent Pinot Noir and Zinfandel wines which were generously provided by Marcucci Winery – thanks again to Cheri and Phillip Marcucci. The evening was crowned by the dance music of the Steve Balich Band. It was obvious that everyone there was having a great time. We plan on continuing with similar social events in the coming year, and are looking forward to ever larger turnouts.

I was particularly happy to see Stanko Pecavar and his lovely wife Maria at the Christmas event. We are all very thankful for the excellent recovery he has made from his recent serious accident. Stanko, it’s great to have you back! Come play for a meeting soon.

I have been in touch by telephone with George Simko from Texas and he tells me that he will be here to play for our January meeting. George always has a good presentation for us and is always warmly received. Bring some of your friends the the meeting to hear him play and say hello.

I am happy to report that we had several new members join our club last year and I welcome all of them to our family. One of our new members is Guy Richards, a very talented and accomplished musician and a real crowd pleaser whether his is playing on the accordion or on the piano. Hopefully he will come play one of his request performances for us again soon.

Speaking of musicians coming to entertain us, our February meeting will welcome Joe Domitrowich to offer us his latest solo performance for winter 2014. I assume that Joe will by playing his Concerto electronic accordion next month, but then I have seen him play a Petosa a time or two as well. Whatever he plays we’ll be happy to have him here.

We will be putting on a Gumbo feed courtesy of Chef Kris Nelson before the February meeting so come and have a good meal of gumbo, sour dough bread and salad at 6:30 PM and stay to hear Joe’s music. Dinner will be a $5 donation at the door. I’m sure we’ll lose money at that price, but we’re all here to have fun.

See you at the next meeting.

Tony Mustaro

President
Accordion Club of the Redwoods