The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
A MUSICAL LEGEND
Consummate performer, mentor to thousands, beloved violinist dies at 92
MIDDLETOWN » Band director, teacher and violinist Santo Fragilio, the man whose more than 60-year musical legacy at the high school inspired and dazzled countless students, teachers and peers, died at home Tuesday at age 92.
Since 1955, Fragilio led the entire Middletown High School music program — the bands, choral groups, orchestra, instrumental instruction, music theory — as well as music classes for the nonperforming high school students, according to his close friend and mentee Marco Gaylord.
Together with Gaylord, Middletown Symphonic Band and Middletown High School band director and Middletown Public School K-12 fine arts director, Fragilio changed the course of former MHS band director and student Anthony Pandolfe’s life, he said.
“I don’t think I’ve ever met somebody with that amount of energy, enthusiasm and perseverance,” said Pandolfe, 27, now a band director at Edwin O. Smith High School in Storrs. He also works as a professional piano player.
“He touched people in many ways,” said Gina Fredericks, director of the Middlesex Hospital Vocal Chords. Over the decades, she accompanied Fragilio countless times. “Performance wise, he would play something and you’d hear it and you’d go, ‘Oh. That’s saying something else. That’s pretty good.
“His violin playing really moved me the most. There’s something about the way he played and the emotion that he played,” Fredericks said. “You couldn’t sit and listen to him and not be touched by his music.”
Fragilio was born in Manhattan on Feb. 27, 1925, the son of Frank and Mary (LaValle) Fragilio. His late wife, Marie Pizzirusso (Russo), died in 2012. Fragilio and his parents moved to Middletown when he was a young boy, Gaylord said. He attended Macdonough Elementary, the old Central Middle School on College Street and Middletown High. Middle school was where he picked up the violin in seventh grade.
Middletown Common Council Sebastian N. Giuliano described him as unassuming and quiet. “Santo Fragilio was Marco Gaylord before Marco Gaylord was Marco Gaylord. Santo kind of followed on the heels of (Leo) Bettencourt, who was the Middletown High School band director when my mother was a drum major,” he said.
“His years were a huge foundation that Marco was able to build on. And he kept active to the extent he could well after he retired,” Giuliano said. “In terms of the music and performing arts program that we have at Middletown High School, it owes a hug debt to Santo.”
In 1943, Fragilio entered the U.S. Army and was assigned to the 363rd Army Band at the Port of Embarkation, Seattle. He played the sousaphone in the Army Band and performed as a violinist for special events and USO productions, according to Gaylord.
Later, while in Indiana performing with the band, Fragilio assisted the American Red Cross in working with disabled soldiers who were patients at Billings General Hospital, according to Gaylord.
“He would stroll through the wards, serenading the patients, performing all types of music. He also went to service clubs in Indianapolis, performing as a soloist and in a dance band,” Gaylord said.
“He was an excellent violinist,” Giuliano said. “On the spur of the moment, he could pick the thing up and play a piece right off the top of his head — he was that good. I’m sure he practiced and rehearsed, but he made it look so effortless that you almost would swear he was born with that instrument in his hands,” he said.
Fragilio received a bachelor’s degree in music education from the Julius Hartt School of Music, and both his master’s of music education and sixth-year degree in music education and administration from the University of Connecticut.
In 1965, under Fragilio’s direction, the Middletown High School Band and Chorus performed at the World’s Fair in New York.
Three years ago, Pandolfe invited his mentor to his classroom to speak to the music students. “He was instrumental to me pursuing music as a career. He provided programs to me — through the Cultural Council — so I could access music that I wouldn’t have been able to in other places,” said Pandolfe, who has known Fragilio since the seventh grade.
“He wanted the students to know the history (of music) and feel they were part of something bigger,” said Pandolfe, who asked Fragilio to speak to his 14- to 16-year-old students, thinking he’d hold the floor for about 15 or 20 minutes.
“Santo was definitely a talker, so an hour later, he was so captivating, I was so impressed at how well he was able to capture their attention and connect with them even at the age of 89,” Pandolfe said.
“I think that’s a really special gift that he had: He wanted everyone to experience and love music.”
Fredericks marveled at Fragilio’s ability to reach people through his love of the violin.
“He was the ultimate performer. He performed always from his heart and wanted to even in his later years,” she said. “He wanted to reach people and he always did. You couldn’t listen to him play without getting emotionally involved with what he did.”
“An extraordinarily gifted musician, he shared his talents joyfully and abundantly,” Gaylord said.
In 1979, Fragilio founded the Middletown Symphonic Band. In 1993, he became chairman of the biannual Middletown High School Goes to the Symphony program, which allows music students to participate in master classes and receive mentoring and coaching from Connecticut symphonies, according to Gaylord.
“Santo felt that his greatest professional achievement was directing the Middletown High School Band’s participation in the International Band Festival held in Vienna, Austria, in 1972,” Gaylord said. “The band toured Austria, Italy, Germany, Belgium and Switzerland, presenting concerts in various villages and cities.”
Beverly Archer, receptionist at the Village at South Farms, where Fragilio lived in his last few years, said he would fill the retirement home often with the lovely strains of the string instrument he so expertly mastered.
“He practiced every day,” she said. “You could always hear his violin playing in his room.”
Fragilio often gave jazz and classical concerts to the residents and many times accompanied other musicians who came by to play, she said — always decked out in a full suit. He was a meticulous dresser: every day donning dress pants, a button-down shirt and nice shoes, Archer said.
“He was a very outgoing, very sweet, kind, gentle guy,” Archer said. “He was close to a lot of the residents here. His music was something that brought everyone together.
“He’d always tell old stories; he talked about his wife a lot, and he had a nice smile. He was a handsome guy,” she said.
Giuliano said Fragilio was very modest — and an institution in Middletown. “He didn’t toot his own horn very much. He just did his job and displayed his love for music in everything he did. He was very encouraging to the people that learned from him.
“He was one of those people you kind of thought was always going to be there. It was like you had the sense that when anything about the arts was discussed in Middletown, that Santo was kind of watching over you, and you’d better do right by it because you didn’t want to disappoint him,” Giuliano said.
Pandolfe said that when Fragilio left his music classroom that memorable day three years ago, he was very moved.
“I said, ‘Oh, my gosh. This is who I want to be and this is why I do this in the first place: because of someone like this.’”