The Mansfield campus of Ohio State will be celebrating its 50th anniversary with a free-admission concert Sunday.
“Fifty Years of Fabulous Favorites,” will take place at the John and Pearl Conard Performance Hall in Riedl Hall at the Mansfield campus. The program was arranged by Tony Pasquarello, a former philosophy professor on campus.
Pasquarello is originally from Philadelphia and attended the University of Pennsylvania as an undergraduate and majored in philosophy. He came to the Columbus campus of Ohio State as a graduate student and teacher’s assistant in 1955. After teaching part-time at the Marion, Mansfield and Newark campuses, he was offered a job as a professor at the Mansfield campus when it opened in 1966. Pasquarello became the first philosophy professor at the Mansfield campus.
Pasquarello takes pride in being associated with the Mansfield campus for its entire span of existence. Now retired from teaching, he works as a specialist in the philosophy of religion, performing research for the university and writing for various journals, he said.
As a teacher, Pasquarello enjoyed the small classes and opportunity at Mansfield.
“I am very attached to the Mansfield campus,” he said. “There is a great deal of excitement (in Columbus) but Mansfield is much more intimate.”
Pasquarello has chosen 20 songs to play for “Fifty Years of Fabulous Favorites,” all from the years 1958, the first year classes were offered at the Mansfield campus, and 1966, the year the campus officially opened.
“I decided to organize the program to honor Ohio State,” He said.
Some of the songs include “MacArthur Park,” “It’s All in the Game,” “Gigi,” “Bring in the Clowns” and a set of three Beatles songs which were centered around 1966. He will be including background information on the songs and has 20 pages of notes prepared for the concert, he said.
“I always like to talk about the songs and what they mean,” he said. “I talk about when it was written and if it means something special.”
Pasquarello has been playing the piano since he was 5 years old and has been surrounded by music for as long as he can remember. His father taught violin and viola and founded an all-girl group in the late ’30s and early ’40s.
“Music was always something in our household,” Pasquarello said.
He has played for many audiences in and around the Columbus area, and has been a featured pianist at the Wendy’s headquarters in Dublin for their annual Christmas parties. He also plays for events held by Jack Nicklaus, whom he met through former student Barbara Nicklaus. In addition, he used to play at Asian Cuisine on High street every Saturday evening for six years, he said.
“I have played every country club in the Columbus area at one time or another,” he said.
Pasquarello’s specialty is classical music and he spent 30 years voluntarily writing all of the programs for the Mansfield Symphony. Because of his 30-year contribution, he won the American Federation of Musicians President’s award for the Mansfield chapter.
Pasquarello enjoys traveling and has been to Europe about 15 times. He is always willing to put on a concert for the tour groups if there is a piano in the area, he said.
Kristen Duwe can be reached at [email protected].
