By the age of 3, most students were watching cartoons or eating bugs in their backyard, but nobody expects for a three year old to be tapping away at the keys of a piano in their free time. 

North Penn sophomore Gianni Caccese has grown up learning and loving music and everything that came with it. From an early age, he had been working with different instruments and compositions. 

“I didn’t have to look for it [music], it was given to me. Whether from television, from the early piano lessons from my mother, or banging pots and dancing to my father’s rock concerts, it only manifested because it was supposed to, one could say.” Caccese explained. Along with learning compositions from other musicians, he was set on making his own music from an early age.

“I started writing classical music when I was 6, which then more than not was garbage, though there were some miracles. But I had been playing instruments in that genre for years more. As time passed, of course I get better with it and was more proud of my growing legitimacy.”

He may have started with the piano, but Caccese has learned to play five instruments over the course of his North Penn career.  

“My first instrument was the piano at the age of 3. My second was the drums, but that was because of my noisy toddler ways. Then I learned the guitar, that had been a bit before the first grade. Then I took up violin around second grade and joined the school orchestra the year afterward. Then in middle school I took up the flute during my seventh grade year and joined the middle school band in eighth grade.”

“My favorite though is the first, and the one I’m most skilled at I assume.” Anyone who has heard Gianni play can agree. He has arranged a composition for Bridle Path elementary, which he was upset to find the title of which to be incorrect Italian. “It should have been ‘spirito,’” He explained. He also played for the senior citizens at Elm Terrace in Lansdale while waiting for the bus to pick the volunteering students up. 

“As of now, I take solo performances with the piano and am in no music group at the school. But I take private lessons for the flute and violin outside,” He explains “I will be joining pit again for a third year.”

Caccese is also a strong Latin student and has been seen by his peers as being practically another teacher. 

“He’s a class by himself,” said Magistra Wesson, North Penn’s Latin teacher. “He’s the junior professor.”

“It wasn’t too complicated. It was the language I chose. But I’m glad I did. Now I plan to become a tutor soon. Spero quemquam certantem in classe Latina ad me venturum esse una laboratum quia eam lego, eam loquor, et eam amo,” Or, in English, “I hope that everyone struggling in Latin class will come to me to work as one because I read it, I speak it, and I like it.”

Caccese hopes to pursue a career in linguistics and work with the government in translation and interpretation. He also hopes to be able to pursue music as a part-time job. He said that he also considered becoming a Latin teacher and possibly working at North Penn.  “It’s a shame that the school board is trying to get rid of Latin because it truly enriches your awareness of the world around you. You can’t ignore a language that is still so vibrant today in so many languages. A language is not just for speaking.”