It can’t be accidental Gene Rapisardi’s last name sounds so much like “rhapsody” or, for that matter, that Cigna Corp.’s logo is so very blue.
Rapisardi heads Southern California operations for the Bloomfield, Conn.-based health services firm, a $65 billion market cap company founded 217 years ago as the young country’s first insurer of ships and their cargo.
He also writes songs, raising money to fight leukemia.
And, by the by, fulfilling his childhood dream.
12 Bar Blues
Rapisardi told the Business Journal of an innate desire to express himself through music—singing and songwriting, guitar in hand—largely unexplored until hanging out with a cousin as a kid.
He was 12. The older relative had “cut a couple records” back in the day and “seriously encouraged” the future executive to pursue songwriting.
Rapisardi did as a teen, but his pensive penning declined as sports and school took over and, soon enough, adulthood loomed. He revisited the work in his 20s but other opportunities again took center stage until the aspiring warbler had become an erstwhile writer nearing the third verse of a life’s song with a chorus of disappointment.
He kept meaning to return to recording but, “life got in the way.”
After an unrequited love spanning decades, Rapisardi had amassed a catalog of some hundred songs, but “only three of those are recorded.”
Sad Song
Not bad for the average regional healthcare chief but not quite what he’d sometimes had to heart.
Then a few years ago, a good friend dying of leukemia at 48 said to him, “‘I know you’re a busy guy but you gotta make time for these things you push aside.’ When a guy says that at 48,” Rapisardi said, “you do something with it.”
What he did was head to Nashville for inspiration and to record one of his songs.
Aside from being the songwriting capital of the South—Rapisardi’s musical tastes tend to two kinds: country and western—the city is the site of his favorite show, “Nashville.”
The drama aired for six seasons, five of which were dominated by, iconically and, in Rapisardi’s case a bit ironically, with the battle between Connie Britton’s fading country music legend Rayna James and rising pop starlet Juliette Barnes, played by Hayden Panettiere.
Christmas Music
He was neither, but was there in 2016 to give it a try.
While at an event at the Opryland Hotel, he and his wife, Nedra, saw a Christmas tree oddly decked out in Pittsburgh Steelers gear, which seemed out of place.
It turned out irrelevant to the bigger deal: the tree was a silent auction donation for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society; it included a chance to meet Charles “Chip” Esten—another actor playing a country singer on “Nashville.” Esten’s daughter Addie Puskar had been diagnosed with leukemia at age 2.
Rapisardi’s was the winning bid and the duo met in May 2017.
He talked with Esten about his late friend who had urged him to pursue songwriting.
Esten told him about “Light the Night”—a fundraising walk he’d helped grow in LLS’ work against blood cancer.
Rapisardi decided to write a song.
Interlude
Light the Night participants carry paper lanterns, the colors of which show their relationship to leukemia sufferers: survivors carry white lanterns; supporters, red ones; those walking in memory of someone who died, carry gold.
The annual series of events includes, for Esten, honoring leukemia victims and their families—and his daughter’s remission. Addie is now 17 and looking to enter college on a soccer scholarship.
By 2018, the event was in its sixth year, it’d raised more than $1 million—and Rapisardi had delivered the song. It had taken more than a year.
At some point, he said, “the words just poured out” and the melody followed along.
“They happen together or they don’t happen at all,” Rapisardi said.
Esten released the single “Light the Night” last October. Its lyrics dealt with Rapisardi’s pal and Esten’s daughter.
All proceeds go to battle the disease.
Night Light
These lines open a song by Cigna SoCal President Gene Rapisardi and performed by actor and singer Chip Esten.
The glass may seem half-empty
But it’s sure filling up fast
We’re here to change the future
from the pain that’s in our past
Rapisardi wrote the song after attending Light the Night in November 2017 with Esten, who recorded and released it the following year to support efforts in fighting leukemia.
It closes with these thoughts.
It sure is a beautiful sight
Gold to honor the loved ones gone
With our miracles in white
Red for those who lend a hand.
