PHOTO: Steve Perillo enjoys wine, travel and music. The president of a major tour operator, he is also a serious composer. (Courtesy of Perillo Tours)
If you asked most people what lies at the juncture between music and tour operation you would get a blank stare. Steve Perillo, the third-generation president of Perillo Tours, may also have no answer, but right at that juncture is where he finds himself. The president of one of the nation's top tour operators is also a serious composer.
Steve was the son of Mario Perillo, who was known as Mr. Italy through his television commercials. Perillo Tours was arguably the most media-savvy marketer in the tour industry, and Mario himself was something of a TV celebrity.
Perillo Tours had been founded by Mario's father, Joseph, as Joseph Perillo and Sons, a travel agency, in a storefront under the Third Avenue El train in the Bronx in 1945. Steve grew up in the company, working in the office putting brochures in envelopes from when he was 7. Steve's life straddled two worlds. Music and the tour business.
Which came first? Who knows when music first stirred the child's heart? Some say musical talent is inborn, maybe inherited from ancestors or even passed on from previous incarnations. Wherever it comes from, Steve had it.
From the Beatles to Bach and Beethoven
Steve Perillo traces the blossoming of his musical interests to the arrival of the Beatles. After the Beatles performed on Ed Sullivan, "We all wanted guitars," he said, referring obliquely to his whole generation. "We all wanted to be the Beatles."
The 13-year old Perillo stuck with it. He took lessons from a music teacher who taught both guitar and piano. When he discovered Bach he was riveted. Something took hold of him. It was a moment of galvanization. It began his absorption with the whole range of historical music from Baroque to Classical to the Romantic period.
He had only been playing piano two years when he auditioned for the prestigious Boston University School of Music. His performances of Bach, Beethoven and other composers were so impressive to the faculty that in spite of his lack of years of piano experience he was accepted.
He was more interested in creating music than performing, so he enrolled as a composition major, with a minor in piano. He studied under Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Del Tredici, who encouraged him to follow his impulses to write melodic music even though much of academia at the time was deeply involved in atonality and believed melody was a thing of the past.
"When I was in college in 1975 you were not allowed to write tonal music," he said. "It was just starting to change. Everyone was writing atonal music. The big debate at the time was serial music versus chance music. They were saying the C major scale was done."
He resisted the over-serious tendencies of academia, letting his gift for melody run free, and keeping his sense of humor with titles like "Crushed Tomatoes" and "Requiem for a Goldfish." The magazine Audiophile Audition appreciated the relief from snobbish pretension and called Perillo's music, "Good natured light symphonic fun completely free of the corny or hackneyed. Begone Carter, Berio, Stockhausen - bring on Perillo."
After graduating, he moved back to New York, composed soundtracks and hosted a weekly radio show on which he played piano, showcasing his own works as well as a wide range of other music. He also wrote pop songs.
He built up a catalog of compositions, including dozens of piano works, more than 100 pop songs, a dozen chamber works, eight extended tone poems, a piano concerto and a "Magnificat for a New Millennium" for mixed chorus and orchestra, which was commissioned by the Benedictine Order and premiered in New York on May 23, 2001.
His orchestral piece "Requiem for a Goldfish" was released on Centaur Records, played by the Russian Festival Orchestra and conducted by Yuval Waldman. He made a series of recordings of his compositions on CD, which are available at Arkivmusic.com.
The Lure of the Travel Business
But struggling to make money as a classical composer was enormously difficult and he began to gravitate back to the family business, where he took on the job of marketing. He continued to compose, however.
"If I didn't make money by the time I was 25 my father convinced me it was going to be a rough go," said Perillo. "So I did that and then I kept doing music on the side in waves of output. I'm at a slow period now.
"I don't know what I expected to happen. If I'd stayed in classical music I would have had to be a teacher and I wasn't going to do that. There are probably 10 professional composers, like Philip Glass types, who make money, and he probably makes a million dollars a year, but everyone else has to have a second job."
Steve Perillo joined Perillo Tours full time in 1980. He became president in 1997 and took over the company when his father died in 2003. After growing up in the business and more than 30 years full time, he said, "I still don't understand the business. I guess things are changing all the time. It changes as fast as you can keep up with it. The Internet really threw us for a loop. It changed the world."
Perillo Tours recently joined the U.S. Tour Operators Association, where Steve can gain the educational advantages of conferring with and sharing best practices with the leaders of other major tour operators.
"I like business," he said. "I like the game of having a product and marketing it."
Steve Perillo loves Perillo Tours, the travel industry and Italy in particular. But his creative demon eats at him.
"I've got to do something about this musical situation," he said. "I've been thinking of hiring someone to help run the business or retiring. I want to do music."
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