“I got an accordion for Christmas.” I audibly gasped when I received this text from Gabriella “Gabby” Chinnici, FCRH ’27. However, after this initial reaction, I became aware that it was quite obvious that Chinnici would be the person to receive a gift as fascinatingly unique as an accordion. Chinnici is an eclectic and vibrant soul, someone who is always willing to lend a hand — or an AirPod.

Her journey with music began even before she was born. Chinnici’s great-grandparents came from Italy, bringing their inherited admiration for music with them. Chinnici grew up hearing immigrant songs that her great-grandparents had written on their journeys to America. Her grandfather had a particular passion for music, serving as a guest conductor for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. 

It was only natural that Chinnici continued this family tradition. When her older sister, Bella, chose piano, “her parents had already invested,” so it was piano for Chinnici as well. She had her first lesson when she was three years old.  

With moving several times around the Chicago area, the piano was a constant presence in her life. Throughout all of this, she still took lessons with the same teacher. It was this teacher of hers who also fueled her love of music, giving her a book each month to read. Because of this, Chinnici has read “over a hundred books on Russian classical music.” The piano was more than an instrument — it both fueled her intellectual pursuits and satisfied her emotional curiosity. 

Her musical ventures expanded as she grew up, deepening her love of the art. She performed all over the country with her high school’s show choir — an art beloved in the Midwest and sadly forgotten elsewhere. She learned to play a plethora of other instruments as well. These include the acoustic guitar, recorder, harmonica, kalimba, stylophone and pedal steel slide — half of which now occupy space in my search history. Chinnici has an above-average knowledge of niche musical subjects.

This admiration of music has even taken her on international adventures, such as a trip to Europe with her choir during her senior year of high school. One of their many performances was to Austrian nursing home residents. These elderly persons had not seen visitors since 2020. The choir’s performance touched the residents, and Chinnici shared that “most of the people in the retirement home were crying after we had finished.” While Chinnici had initially considered stepping away from music in college, this experience gave her a glimpse into the “uniting power of music.” It became a priority for her to continue to explore this passion. 

Now at Fordham University, her musical journey continues in a myriad of ways. She is an alto singer for the Praise and Worship choir and writes blogs for the RELISH magazine. She continues to take piano lessons at Fordham and even teaches others as well. Chinnici FaceTimes her younger cousins from the practice room to give them their own lessons. The familial love of music lives on. 

For Chinnici, music symbolizes all the various journeys through life. While she was anxious about playing the piano around family as a child, she has become much more “comfortable with music that is for others.” This has grown in experiences like choir, where music is naturally a shared experience. In more ordinary ways, Chinnici loves bonding with people over music by inviting them to her favorite musical acts around the city — such as the New York Arabic Orchestra — or even just keeping her friends up to date with her song recommendations on the app “Airbuds Widget.”

Chinnici still treasures the personal impact that music provides her, as “the piano is the most profound instrument.” She elaborated on the various benefits of listening to music: “classical music is really helpful for the heart” … who knew! 

While she still treasures music as the most meaningful medium in her life, she strays from viewing it as a career opportunity. She “doesn’t want music to become too commodified and too stressful.” She prefers the casual yet profound experience of music, whether listening to the New York Philharmonic or her new favorite genre, Samba-jazz, on her AirPods. For Chinnici, her life would be absent without music, as the sign that is hung up inside her apartment says: “No Vinyl, No Life.”