Musician and engineer Tony Tomei will be featured on Inside Arts, which airs on Sunday PAC 8. Courtesy photo

COMMUNITY News:

The Los Alamos Museum of Art continues its series, Inside Arts, with an interview of local engineer and musician, Tony Tomei, airing 8:30 p.m. Sunday, 4 p.m. Tuesday and 8 p.m. Thursday on PAC 8.

Tomei and accordions go way back. As a mechanical engineering student at New Mexico Tech., Tomei became interested in international folk dancing. That’s when he realized that much of the music was played on accordions and resolved to learn to play the instrument. He embarked on parallel careers as an engineer and as a professional musician, teacher and restorer of accordions.

Caught in the 2000 Cerro Grande Fire, he said, “It was like looking a fire monster right in the eye.”

He used his engineering skills to rig a makeshift sprinkler on his roof using his $7.99 garden hose, and saved his house, his neighbor’s house and the part of his accordion collection that remained in his studio.

“I want to keep the accordion and the accordion tradition alive”, he said, “and expose people to its qualities and versatility … The accordion is intimate, you hold it and hug it, and it becomes part of you and an extension of your personality … It’s a visually beautiful instrument.”

Tomei’s collection of accordions numbers more than 100.

Inside Arts airs weekly on PAC 8, at 8:30 p.m. Sundays, 4 p.m. Tuesdays and 8 p.m. Thursdays. For more information contact Jean Gindreau at PAC 8 at 662.7228 or pac8@losalamos.com or Ruth Tatter at LAMOA at 662.5496 or at rjtatter@gmail.com.