Stef Scaggiari: NPR's Resident Ivory-Tickler Returns

By NPR Staff

Published July 2, 2011 at 12:00 PM EDT

Stef Scaggiari was the man behind the music breaks in the early days of <em>Weekend Edition Sunday.</em> — Stef Scaggiari was the man behind the music breaks in the early days of *Weekend Edition Sunday.*

Stef Scaggiari was the "staff pianist" in the very early days of Weekend Edition Sunday. When the show began in 1987, it was Scaggiari who recorded its now-unmistakable theme. But he was also in the studio during the broadcast taping itself, playing musical interludes on the fly to help fill the space between stories.

"I remember playing to a countdown clock," he tells NPR's Susan Stamberg. "When you said, 'Give me a minute and 23 seconds,' I'd have to create something — improvise something — so that the music would sound completely natural ending at 1 minute and 23 seconds."

Scaggiari eventually left NPR to focus on his solo career. His most recent album is a collection of standards titled Sing Your Song, released last year. But for Sunday's interview, he returned to the NPR studio and took up his old spot behind the piano. In addition to playing the Weekend Edition Sunday theme, he graced the team with a few popular songs, one of which — the Stephen Foster tune "Hard Times Come Again No More" — gave him a chance to show off his singing chops.