he was more interested in the mandolin, to the disgust of his teacher, the lessons ended. This would have been in the 1890s, when the mandolin was the instrument of the moment, worldwide. The two instruments (which are tuned the same and of similar size) are similar enough for Bernardo to have applied his educated understanding of the violin to the mandolin. His other teacher, Francesco, was a mandolinist who ran in the same artistic circle as Raffaele Calace and Nicole Calace in Naples. Bernardo won an international competition for mandolin players in Europe in 1899. Born in 1881, he would have been 18. He then won similar contests of musical skill in Naples, Paris, London, Berlin, and St. Petersburg. He impressed the Sultan of Turkey (in Paris) and performed before Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary, Kaiser Wilhelm II in Berlin and Czar Nicholas II of Russia in St. Petersburg. Bernardo and his brother Nicola toured in England for nearly a decade and then emigrated to the United States in August 1909. De Pace brothers in America De Pace Opera Company After arriving in the United States, August 27, 1909, Bernardo and his older brother Nicholas began touring performances. A newspaper clipping from Washington, D.C. in May 1910 calls their act the De Pace Brothers. At first they worked as instrumental performers, doing guitar and mandolin instrumentals. Beginning in 1914 they performed under the name De Pace Opera Company, a cast of 6 or 7 accomplished singers, whose performance included instrumentals and vocal numbers. Their lead singer was the soprano Adeline Dossena, who had performed at the La Scala theater in Milan. Both brothers sang in operatic style as well as played their instruments. The opera company gave condensed performances of popular operas. The Atlanta Constitution gave a description of their show in 1917, saying, "Their repertoire includes arias from the greatest operas ever written and are signalized because they differ from the regulation so-called "classic song" that one usually hears nowadays on the stage. Besides being singers of attainment, each member of the company is an expert instrumentalist, their selections on the mandolin and guitar being equally as credible as their singing." They were also billed the De Pace Sextet, playing classical and popular selections. In Akron the group was labeled one of the most "finished groups" to have performed there. Transition to separate careers In 1920 the brothers