About Us

Fran Giannuzzi, Director

I was born and raised in Upstate New York, living in an Italian community with an Italian church and an Irish church right next to each other. We celebrated the Feast of the Assumption every August 15 with an Italian street festival with all foods Italian, as well as music. That celebration continues still today – over 50 years later!

I am second generation Italian American, the proud daughter of June DeMaria and Francis Palermo. My mother’s family (surname Mauro) was from the town of San Donato di Ninea, Cosenza, Calabria and my father’s family from Paternopoli, Avellino, Campania. They both came over in the 1920’s with the surge of Italian immigrants and both settled in Binghamton, NY.

I moved to Raleigh, NC in 1992 when my husband, Bob Giannuzzi, was transferred with IBM. At our first residence, I served on the Home Owners Association Board and was recipient of the Volunteer of the Year Award through Wake County.  I owned a business called In Fran’s Hands, where I took seniors to run their errands and help them get their groceries, ensuring their working children’s families that their parents could get out and about.

We moved to a Del Webb Community in Cary in 2009. While there, I served as president of the Calabria Italian Club and chair of the Guardian Angels program, supporting Wake County families in need at the holiday time for the past five years.

I am currently a past president of the Triangle Sons and Daughters of Italy Lodge 2817 and have held various positions on the board.

I have two daughters and four grandchildren, and have spent many vacations with our families in Italy searching our Italian ancestry, even spending time in our parents’ and grandparents’ home towns.

As a founding member of Festa Italiana Raleigh in 2017, my vision is to continue to watch it grow and share our Italian heritage and culture with the Triangle area in our foods, entertainment, and arts.

Bob Giannuzzi, Director

I was born in Syracuse, NY, the third son of parents Joseph and Antoinette (Pistilli) Giannuzzi, whose families immigrated in the early 1900s from Monopoli, Bari in the Puglia region and Campobasso in the Molise region -at the time, still part of the Abbruzzo region-o f Italy, respectively. I was fortunate to have been raised in an Italian neighborhood with my grandmother and aunt living in the same house and several relatives residing nearby. Although shortchanged in not learning the Italian language, I was immersed in the wonderful culture and outstanding cuisine. I always looked forward to the several Italian feasts put on annually by parishes in the area.

I hold graduate degrees in electrical engineering and computer science from Syracuse University, as well as an MBA from Duke. I moved to this area when transferred to the Research Triangle area in 1992 and, ultimately, retired from IBM in 1997, after working in product development here, and in Endicott and Owego, NY, and Tucson, AZ. After a brief stint at Nortel Networks, I had my final career stop in North Carolina state government in customer service and project management oversight, retiring in 2014.

In the late 1980s, I was a member of the Sons of Italy Lodge in Endicott, NY, where I served as recording secretary before moving here. In 1994, I joined the Triangle Italian American Heritage Association where I have held several board positions, including president, and chaired several committees. I am currently Past President of Triangle Sons and Daughters of Italy (TSDOI). Both of these local organizations give me an opportunity to help maintain a positive image of Italians through our community service.

Our two daughters grew up around their Italian American relatives, experienced the culture, and have even studied the language. Our four grandchildren all have an appreciation of our heritage, and have been and are youth members of TSDOI.

I am honored to be a co-founder of Festa Italiana Raleigh since its inception and look forward to present awesome events highlighting our culture, entertainment, and food. Equally important is our philanthropic mission to raise funds for worthy local charities.

Larry Vellani, Entertainment & Media

A professional administrator, fund-raiser, teacher-scholar, and performing artist, I have led private and public organizations, performed on theater and concert stages, and taught at research and liberal arts institutions in the Midwest and Southeast for more than forty years.

A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the Ohio State University, with degrees from Ohio State and Indiana University in history, education, and public administration, I have built and led research, educational, policy development, direct service, and performing arts organizations in Ohio, Indiana, and North Carolina, and have provided contractual service and consultation through VellaniAssociates℠ in fifteen US states, two Canadian provinces, one Italian region, and one Mexican state.

I am the immediate descendant of Emilian emigrants, whose families have lived among the Reggio Emilia and Modena provincial border farming communities in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy since at least the late 1400s. My grandfather, Leonida Tranquillo Vellani, emigrated to Ohio in June 1913 aboard the SS Niagara, and his spouse, Virginia Aldina Reverberi, and my father’s four elder siblings, aboard the SS America, followed in September 1915, supported by my grandfather’s work on the steel foundry floor, where he helped guide the flow of molten metal into steel casting and transfer ladles.

My early interest in traditional Italian song was fueled by my relationship with Leonida and my aunts, Desolina Vellani DiNucci and Emma Vellani Soiu. The Reverberi and Vellani families were from the Po River plain in the traditional Emilia region, source of a rich tradition of community singing and the home of one of Italy's most famous traditional singers, Giovanna Daffini (Mantova Province), and her accompanist spouse, Vittorio Carpi (Reggio Emilia Province). Leonida was an avid community singer with a repertoire of traditional, as well as anti-clerical and syndicalist songs and aphorisms. As a teenager, I preserved some of Leonida’s and his daughters’ songs on audio tape. A chance meeting with world-renowned folklorist and scholar, Alessandro Portelli, at the Highlander School in New Market, TN in the early 1980's helped me to understand more fully the unique, rich legacy I had gained from my family, and inspired me to continue my study and performance of Italian traditional melody and song.

I continue to collect melodies and lyrics from family and friends reflective of the reality of the uprooted and resettled. Growing up in the Hilltop Community of Columbus, Ohio, I learned how to sing in Latin before I could read in English. A solo and ensemble musician, my musical performances draw upon source material from lands and peoples on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as the waters of the Mediterranean and the Gulf of Mexico. I am a co-founder of the acoustic-electric, roots, rhythm, and roll music ensemble, Mebanesville, performing “music without borders from the roads we travel” since spring 2000. In spring 2022, along with Peggy Boswell and Iryna Tkachenko of Mebanesville, and other musicians associated with North Carolina’s growing Ukrainian-American community, I helped co-found Червона Калина (Chervona Kalyna), performing a range of traditional and contemporary Ukrainian music.

I have shared my life and work with my collaborator and spouse, Margaret L. “Peggy” Boswell, a native of Alamance County, NC, since we began our relationship in the spring of 1980. We have lived together in Mebane, NC since spring 1995, and are the proud parents of our son, Ben, resident in Raleigh, NC, and our daughter Ginny and her husband George, and their son / our grandson, Ezra, resident in Greensboro, NC. After my family, I could not be prouder to have been honored as the 2017 Outstanding Italian American in NC by OSIA Lodge 2817, Raleigh, NC in recognition of my contributions to the study, promotion, and popular performance of Italian and Italian-American folk and contemporary music throughout North Carolina. A co-founder of Festa Italiana Raleigh, Inc., I am a long-time, at-large member of the Order of the Sons and Daughters of Italy in America.

I envision Festa Italiana Raleigh’s annual celebrations and fundraising efforts growing to a weekend of cultural and philanthropic events, anchored in a “street fair” experience, while expanding into other forms of exhibition, including seminars, panels, film screenings, and quality art, craft, and cultural mercati, celebrating world-wide Italian culture and the values of creativity, quality, craft, beauty, family, and cultural humanism.

I envision our Festa operations as leading to the development of an ever-growing, community-based network of individuals and organizations committed to celebrating world-wide Italian culture.

William “Billy” Ward

I am originally from Lancaster, Pennsylvania with family ties to New York City, Long Island, and, of course, Italy. I was lucky to be raised close to my grandparents and great-grandparents impressing on me the importance of family, faith, and keeping traditions alive. My fondest memories growing up are the holidays when everyone was together laughing, sharing stories, and taking part in the activities that have kept each generation connected. My Italian ancestors are from a town called Maschito in Italy and immigrated to America in the 1920s.

I moved to North Carolina in 2020 to be closer to my immediate family that relocated to the Raleigh area. I found an extended Italian family by being an active member of Triangle Sons and Daughters of Italy and Triangle Italian American Heritage Association. Through these organizations, we are keeping traditions alive and I hope that Festa Italiana makes attendees feel part of the family. As a board member of Festa, my responsibilities are to oversee the strategic layout of the event. In this role, I coordinate with other chairs to place vendors on the map and ensure proper access to vendors and attendees.

Outside of Festa, I work for Cargas Systems as a Product Specialist. Cargas Systems is a leading software consulting company based in Pennsylvania that implements and resells ERP and CRM software such as Sage Intacct, Hub Spot, Dynamics, and Sales Force. We also implement proprietary software for heating oil and propane companies to manage their customers and delivery drivers called Cargas Energy. In my role, I meet with prospects to demo Cargas Energy and ensure that the system can attain our customers' goals. In my free time, I enjoy traveling, spending time with friends and family, as well as sitting on the board of both TSDOI and TIAHA organizations.