Bella Ciao, the San Franciso-based six piece band has released their second CD. The new CD “Festivus Italiano”, is available and contains such hits as “Oh Marie”, “Mambiambo”, “Rina”, “Danielle Polka”, “Sway”, and many more. It contains a wonderful mixture of classic Italian hits as well as some American Italian songs.

The Bella Ciao band is unique in that it concentrates on Italian and Italian-American music of the late ’50 and early ‘60s and today’s Italian-American hits that are reminiscent of the retro music from that period.

Bella Ciao’s musical goal is to revive, promote and continue the rich heritage of the musical genre known as Italian-American music, the genre of music that included famous Italian-American songs from Jerry Vale, Dino, Louis Prima, Al Martino, Connie Francis, etc. Bella Ciao also pays homage to Italian artists of the period including Renato Carosone and Mina.

Tom Torriglia is the accordionist with Bella Ciao. Tom has been in the music business since the late 1960s and has been an avid accordion promoter over the years. He was an original member of Those Darn Accordions, is responsible for making June “National Accordion Awareness Month,” and campaigned to make the accordion San Francisco’s official instrument.

Tom is a member of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. He volunteers his time for Music In Schools Today. Tom specializes in both playing and singing Italian and Italian-American favorites. The fact that Tom sings, especially in Italian, enhances the ambience of Italian-themed events.

Bella Ciao performed the Star Spangled Banner at AT&T park on August 7, 2007, the night Barry Bonds broke the home run record. They have given performances at the Virginia Beach (VA) Italian festival, SBC Park (playing the Italian National Anthem before a Giants’ game), Cotati Accordion festival, San Francisco Accordion festival, Stockton Asparagus festival and the San Rafael Italian Festival.

During the entire month of June, as part of National Accordion Awareness month, the Bella Ciao band is donating 50% of the profits from web-site sales of its two CDs, “Legends of the Italian Lounge” and “Festivus Italiano”, to the earthquake relief effort in L’Aquila, Italy.

For more information about the CD and the band, Bella Ciao:
Tom Torriglia: 415-440-0800 and tom@ladyofspain.com