PIANO MAN: GUS PAPPELIS; CARBONDALE, ILL., NATIVE RETURNS TO GIVE PERFORMANCE WITH OLD JAZZ FUSION BAND

In the 1970s, Gus Pappelis was a science major attending SIU on an athletic scholarship to play the piano for the gymnastics team.

With his father Aristotel a professor in the SIU Department of Botany, Pappelis's interest in science ran deep. While doing graduate work in gerontology at SIU, Pappelis had published 17 manuscripts, including "Nuclear Dry Mass and Area of Human Buccal Mucosa Cells."

But he had a gift for music as well.

"I always had mixed emotions," he said of his twin interests.

Music won out, and Pappelis has made a successful career for himself on the West Coast as a jazz pianist and composer of shows, particularly for the Disney company.

Pappelis will return for a performance before the home folks at 8 p.m. Saturday at Shryock Auditorium on the SIU campus.

A native of Carbondale, Pappelis was well known in his hometown for playing piano for theatrical productions and various bands, including the Jazz Fusion Band.

Pappelis also played the piano for the Saluki gymnastics team. Traveling to Russia when he was 20 as the pianist for the U.S. Women's Gymnastics Team was a significant event in his life."

"It made me think about music in more than just hobby terms," he said in a phone interview from his home near Portland, Ore.

While he was still living in Carbondale, the Pappelis' Jazz Fusion Band won first place at the Chicagofest. He also won awards as outstanding composer/arranger and outstanding jazz pianist at the Wichita Jazz Festival and the Elmhurst Jazz Festival.

Joining Pappelis on stage Saturday will be members of the former Jazz Fusion Band: guitarist John Wallerich, bassist Jim Wall and drummer John Zurek. Wallerich is coming from Southern California and Zurek from Colorado. Only Wall still lives in Carbondale.

The event is a benefit for Carbondale Community Arts.

After leaving Carbondale in 1984 to pursue a music career in Los Angeles, Pappelis initially made a living by playing Cole Porter tunes at Beverly Hills cocktail parties. That led to work playing a piano player on some TV shows. "They just wanted someone who looking like they played piano," he said.

Those shows eventually led to work composing production numbers for the Disney company and others in the entertainment industry. The long-running "Golden Horseshoe Jamboree" at Disneyland and Disneyworld was Pappelis' creation.

Silver Dollar City's "Town Square Sing-Along" and Branson's "Showboat Branson Belle" shows are his.

Moving to Los Angeles and pursuing a music career was not an easy decision, Pappelis says. "Music is not an easy way to go."

He says he's been lucky in many ways. "But I've also experience the business's ups and downs, times when I was really busy and times when I was looking at the phone and wondering if there was any work around."

A year ago, Pappelis and his family moved to a small town near Portland, Ore., where his wife went to school and is now a special education teacher. "I always said I can write music anywhere," he explained.

His focus has shifted from performing to writing, and the landscape reminds him of Southern Illinois.