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Musician Makes People Happy Through Calliope's Joyful Strains
By Beth Donze
Source: Catholic News Service
Published: Saturday, October 03, 2009
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Debbie Fagnano plays the calliope on a New Orleans steamboat Sept. 18.
NEW ORLEANS—As the player of one of the country's two working calliopes, Debbie Fagnano has a unique view from her perch atop the New Orleans steamboat Natchez.

While playing the iconic instrument during pre-boarding concerts at the boat's home dock, Fagnano will see grown men and women break into a hop or a skip when they hear tunes like "Camptown Races" and others coming from the instrument's pipes.

When she plays "How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?" dog walkers in the French Quarter will scoop up their pets and wave their animals' paws at Fagnano in gratitude.
Making people happy through the calliope's joyful strains is her trade, and Fagnano, 54, is happy to oblige.

"(Calliope music) actually draws people to the boat," said Fagnano, a Catholic who celebrated her 20th anniversary as the Natchez's calliope player Sept. 26. "I'll check with the ticket office (before a calliope concert) and they maybe will have sold 40 tickets for that cruise, but by the time I get done playing, we've got 150 people on the boat."

A calliope is a musical instrument fitted with steam whistles, played from a tiny keyboard. The original reason for putting calliopes on steamboats was to lure people to the riverfront.

"The calliope is the Pied Piper of the river and it still works today," said Fagnano.
When she is not playing the calliope, chances are she's at the organ at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in Belle Chasse, playing for the Saturday vigil and Sunday morning Masses, and directing the parish's youth and adult choirs in her role as minister of music.

"On Saturdays I go from the boat to church, and on Sundays I go from church to the boat," she said. "I'm on the river seven days a week."

Born and raised across the river from New York City in Fairview, N.J., Fagnano comes from an extended family of musicians. Her Italian-born grandfather was a classical violinist, guitarist and mandolin player; her mother sang in her school and church choirs; and her father moonlighted with his brothers as a trumpeter in the house band of a local restaurant.

"I don't ever remember not knowing about music," said Fagnano, who began formal piano lessons at 7. "I remember being barely able to sit on the bench and plucking out little tunes on the piano before I even started school."

After earning her degree in music education from Jersey City State College and the University of Houston, Fagnano moved to New Orleans in 1988, smitten with a place she had discovered on countless vacations. She also was lured by the many musical opportunities spawned by the city's hosting of the Republican National Convention that year.

"I loved the jazz. I loved the food. I would go to all the clubs and listen to all the music," Fagnano recalled in an interview with the Clarion Herald, newspaper of the New Orleans Archdiocese. "I used to sit in the airport on the way (back to New Jersey) and cry because I didn't want to leave."

In 1989, when illness forced the Natchez's regular calliope player to leave, Fagnano auditioned for the spot.

Fagnano's 15-minute calliope concerts usually are a combination of upbeat standards, show tunes and requests she hears in her daily walks to and from the wharf. Predictably, "When the Saints Go Marching In" is her top request, but she also loves a few sentimental favorites.

"I'll be playing a little waltz, like 'Let Me Call You Sweetheart,' and all of a sudden I'll see couples dancing on the dock," she said.

Another professional highlight was her dedication of an extended calliope concert to New Orleans Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond on Aug. 20, the day of his installation at St. Louis Cathedral.

In addition to making magic on the calliope, Fagnano also provides the live narration during the steamboat's 15 to 18 weekly cruises.

When it comes to her music ministry, Fagnano said she believes the primary purpose of church music is to enhance the liturgy, not to entertain.

"Even the congregational hymns that I select should be appropriate to that day so the music becomes a very vital part of the liturgy," Fagnano said.

At her parish church, Mass is more than "just showing up, sitting there for an hour and going home. We participate. Our church is a singing church," Fagnano said.

Her music ministry also takes her to Children's Hospital of Louisiana, where she volunteers several times a month to rock and sing lullabies to babies in the neonatal intensive care unit.

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