Bayville’s songstress to share her talent in Glen Cove

JoAnn Criblez is committed to bringing down the house at La Bussola on July 27 when she performs “Broadway: Old and New.” During her cabaret act, she will sing a collection of her favorite Broadway classics, as well as modern pieces.
Criblez, a 1987 graduate of Locust Valley High School, is a music teacher in the Glen Cove City School District for the last 27 years. Classically trained, she’s a professional performer.
“When you’re an art educator, it’s important to have one foot in your media,” the veteran singer of 30 years explained. “It makes for a better teacher.”
Mike Israel, the recently retired assistant superintendent of curriculum, instruction, and technology for the GCCSD, said Criblez has always been popular with children, and parents love her too.
“Whatever she does is golden. Her voice is unbelievable,” said Israel, adding that he’s planning to go to La Bussola because he loves to hear Criblez sing. “She connects to the kids through music by using performance arts to do so.”

Criblez lived in Bayville since she was 8 and her passion for music began about the same time. Her talent became noticeable to others at that time too, including her Bayville Primary third-grade teacher, who told her mother, “This little girl can sing.”
Criblez’s mother, JoTina DiGennaro, was a professor of physical education at Hunter College. Her father, Joseph, a professor at Lehman College, taught exercise, physiology, and health. Criblez said she appreciates their support for her artistic career, especially since it was so different from their own.
“I was always the one belting out ‘Annie’ at the top of my lungs,” the 52-year-old said. “We had a lot of music playing at home when I was growing up, from Broadway to folk music. In fact, the folk music helped my brothers and I to develop harmonies.”
She began performing with her younger brothers Joe and John DiGennaro in 2001, when they formed the folk music group Threes Harmony. They disbanded three years later when the harmonies dropped to two when Joe moved to California.
JoAnn and John formed the J Band in 2004, performing a variety of music including folk, classic rock, top 40 and show tunes. Although he moved four years later to New Hampshire, JoAnn kept the band going under the same name with the original musicians.
Donna Appell, of Oyster Bay, met Criblez when she was the choral director at St. Dominic’s Catholic Church over 20 years ago. Appell’s daughter, Ashley, who was 12 at the time, was in the children’s choir. She has Hermansky-Pudlak Syndrome, a genetic metabolic disorder which causes visual impairment and a platelet dysfunction. It can cause lung disease, so Appell wanted her daughter to exercise her lungs to keep them functioning.
“We wanted her to sing and for her to be given breathing exercises,” Appell said. “We took her to a vocal coach who said she wouldn’t have the stamina to be a singer. When I told JoAnn she said, ‘Give her to me.’ Ashley got so much out of music.”
Criblez has been giving Ashley, now 35, private lessons ever since. “It’s been a beautiful musical partnership,” Criblez said. “And the singing has really helped her lungs in the process.”
Helping Ashley introduced Criblez to the HPS Foundation, a nonprofit organization in Oyster Bay. The organization struck a chord with her and she wanted to help in any way she can.
“My commitment to HPS started with Ashley, but then every musician who played with J Band over the past 20 years fell in love with the whole organization too,” she said. “We really wanted to make a difference for all of those afflicted with the disease.”
J Band cut two albums, “Another Christmas,” in 2005, and “A Very Merry Christmastime,” in 2011. All the proceeds from the album sales were donated to HPS.
The band performed the Christmas show at Oyster Bay High School Performing Arts Center each year beginning in 2002, a benefit for HPS Foundation. It was moved to the LIU Tilles Center in 2016 for five years and renamed “Jingles and Jazz starring JoAnn Criblez. The profits from the concerts went to HPS. Criblez raised $500,000 for HPS over the past 20 years.
“She adopted our cause and spent so much time and effort for our organization,” Appell said. “It’s a rare disorder so JoAnn isn’t getting any accolades. We don’t have a treatment or cure, but have made progress with the disease. (The money) she raised was integral for research.”
Over the years, Criblez performed at weddings and feasts, something she also enjoys. She said she’s singing at La Bussola because she decided to do something for herself and to sing what she likes to sing.
“What I like about singing is the way it makes me feel and how it makes other people feel when they hear it,” Criblez said. “It’s an instrument everyone is born with. To have a pretty one has served me in my life.”
She will sing hits by Cole Porter, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Lerner & Loewe, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and Stephen Sondheim. She will be joined by two guest singers who will perform duets with her. The songstress said she can’t wait.
"I'm hoping that everyone who attends on July 27 walks away feeling like they got a little taste of Broadway in their backyard," she said. “Music is the gift that keeps on giving in my life."