By Joel Keller
THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE
When she was a young woman, Wanda Spallina used to play with fire. Don’t worry; it was nothing dangerous, it was her job.
Spallina was “Wanda, the Goddess of Fire,” dancing in hotels all over New York City in a bikini while fire shot around her body. The bikini and other parts of her costume were fireproof. “It’s all timing. I only got burned once, but not badly,” she says with pride.
She hasn’t been a fire dancer since she met her husband. “He got a little jealous,” she explains. But what she has done is play classical piano and organ in locations around the world, mostly for no more than a handshake and a “thank you.”
Playing beautiful music
“When I got married, I became a volunteer,” she says. “I never knew it would be such a beautiful job.”
Nowadays, Spallina plays everything from Chopin to Mozart to Andrew Lloyd Webber. She not only plays classical music in concerts for the Little Sisters of the Poor, she also plays show tunes and standard pop songs for her fellow residents at Cedar Crest, in Pompton Plains.
“I play three hours a day,” she explains from behind the baby grand piano at the retirement community’s Oak Room restaurant, located in the Belmont Clubhouse. “One hour in the (interfaith) chapel, one hour in my apartment, and one hour here.” Every Friday, during the Oak Room’s happy hour, Spallina essentially becomes Cedar Crest’s “Piano Man,” spinning pop standards to an appreciative sing-along crowd.
Music has been her life
Spallina started playing classical piano when she was three years old, after a music teacher suggested to her parents that she take up piano so that she could accompany her brother, who played violin.