One night every year stands above the rest for Jenna Esposito. For close to two decades, the New York City-based singer has done the same annual performance. It’s what earned her the nickname The Voice of Little Italy.
Since 2010, Esposito has performed the closing night finale of the Feast of San Gennaro, Little Italy’s famous 11-day street festival celebrating the patron saint of Naples. The performance always means a lot for Esposito, who has Italian heritage and centers classic Italian and American hits.
“Singing feels like coming home,” she said.
This year’s Feast of San Gennaro will run from Sep. 17 to Sep. 27. As the last crowds clear and vendors begin packing up, Esposito on the final night must, once again, take to the stage and perform. Yet this year will mean even more, she said. It’s the festival’s 100th anniversary.
“It’s more than just my performance this year. It’s putting a stamp and trying to create something memorable … which is a huge responsibility,” Esposito said. “But it’s something that I take such pride in.”
A life of music
There was always music in Esposito’s life as she grew up in Middletown, New York. Her father is a musician and taught music in a junior high school. Esposito and her sister sang in their church choir.
Additionally, her grandparents, on her mother’s side of the family, owned an Irish-Scottish pub and Esposito found herself singing there, too. Her first memory of singing was in that pub, she said.
In 2003, she moved to New York City, settling in Astoria.
“I was like, “How do I do this professionally?” Esposito said. She had only performed a couple of shows in a coffee house upstate but knew she wanted to turn her passion into a career. In 2004, now living in Park Slope, Esposito secured her first cabaret show. The gig was at Danny’s Skylight Room — “sadly no longer there,” she said.
After a performance that only drew four people in the audience and “one of the best pieces of advice ever” from Don Shaffer, the booker at Danny’s Skylight Room, Esposito tried Birdland Jazz Club’s legendary Cast Party. “It is the open mic of all open mics,” she said of the weekly Monday night show. In 2005, Esposito began performing at the Cast Party every week. She did that for 10 years.
“That’s how I got started and got into the music world in New York,” she said.
Finding her voice
In the years that followed, Esposito’s career grew. She has since performed in “pretty much” every neighborhood, she said. She’s also released five albums to date.
One memorable moment was in 2009, when Esposito put together a tribute show to Connie Francis, the legendary singer. Esposito researched and planned the run of shows for a year. She described the tribute as the “wake up call” that introduced her to Italian songs and her Italian heritage. She also recorded the tribute as an album.
After the run, Esposito got an email from Connie Francis herself, praising the recording. The email was legit, she was told by both the president of the Connie Francis fan club and a member of Francis’s family. Francis and Esposito began emailing and calling regularly, eventually meeting a couple times, and ultimately forming a close friendship.
“I asked her ahead of time what her favorite cookie was because, besides singing, that’s my other thing. I love baking,” Esposito said. “She loved pignoli cookies. So I made her pignoli cookies.”
In 2010, Esposito secured her first performance at the Feast of San Gennaro. She has done closing night ever since, she said. Around 2016, a festival organizer introduced her to the crowd as the “Voice of Little Italy”, a nickname the festival and Esposito have kept since. Esposito also learned that Connie Francis used to sing at the festival.
Esposito began performing year-round in Little Italy, including at tree lightings, Christmas parades, or cultural celebrations, like Ferragosto.
A couple years ago, Esposito sang at a music festival in Sanremo, Italy, and was selected as a semifinalist out of almost 900 applicants. Last year, Esposito also did a mini concert tour of Sicily with Philadelphia’s City Rhythm Orchestra; next month, Esposito is returning to Italy with the group for another 10-day tour.
More than music
“Music, it unites people,” Esposito said.
Esposito is motivated to keep singing by her love of learning and challenges. In college, she pursued theater while taking voice lessons. After graduating, however, she realized “what I love to do is sing.”
Family is also important. Her father, originally one of the reasons she began singing, is still her musical director. Her nephew plays drums in her band. And her husband, Jimmy, is supportive, no matter what. “During every up and down and twist and turn, he is my rock,” she said.
This year’s Feast of San Gennaro, the 100th anniversary, will mark Esposito’s second year booking the performers for the festival. The task is hard, she said. She doesn’t like saying no. Esposito knows how special it is to perform there.
For 11 days, the city celebrates Italian American culture and heritage. It feels like the whole city is Italian American, she said. And when Esposito gets up on that stage, that final night, “for the moment you forget about politics, you forget about who’s angry at whom.” It’s just people singing. She said she gets teary.
“It’s almost indescribable,” she said.
