©2024 THE MOONLIGHTERS BIG BAND OF LITITZ PA
MUSICIANS
JOE
GAGLIARDI
TRUMPET 1
BUSINESS MANAGER
Joe has been playing big band jazz charts for 30 years, beginning when he was a
middle school student in his hometown of Shelton, Connecticut. He graduated from
the Hartt School of Music with a degree in Music Management. Joe performed with
the After Hours Big Band in Billerica, Massachusetts, for several years while he was
a staff member of the New Hampshire Symphony Orchestra.
Joe married his wife, Karen, in 1991 and moved to Tuxedo Park, New York. She
believes one of the reasons he did was to be 45 minutes away from Hawthorne,
New Jersey. After the wedding, Joe immediately joined the Hawthorne Caballeros
Senior Drum and Bugle Corps (which meant rehearsals every Friday night – imagine
how well that conversation went). He is extremely proud to have marched with the
Cabs in their field presentation of ‘West Side Story’ in 1993 and honored to have
been a featured soloist for the Corps that year. Joe was awarded the Caballeros’
1993 Horn Player of the Year Award. During their time in New York, Joe worked in
sales and catalog production with National Educational Music Company (NEMC), a
musical instrument catalog retailer.
Joe, Karen, and their 1st daughter Jill moved to Lancaster County in 1996, with their
second daughter Rachel on the way. Joe is now a Senior Customer Service
Representative with RR Donnelley. In addition to substituting with the
Moonlighters, Joe plays with the Flipside Big Band in West Lampeter and
substitutes with the Sound of Roses Big Band. Joe is also a member of the
Lampeter-Strasburg Community Band. When not playing, Joe can be found either
driving the family’s 1956 Continental Mark II, helping Jill to play Benny Goodman’s
clarinet solos, or working (stepping) around the horses at Rachel’s youth rodeos.