Editors Note

This week, Accordions Worldwide Director Harley Jones will celebrate his 50th birthday with many accordion friends and family. The musical celebrations will include New Zealand entertainer Lionel Reekie, Wayne Knights, Kevin Friedrich, and Heather Masefield (Harley's sister). We all wish Harley a wonderful birthday!

Wayne Knights Webmaster

Winner of the 2002 CIA Coupe Mondiale World Accordion Championships Alexander Poeluev (Russia) will appear as a special International guest artist on July 13th at White Recital Hall on the UMKC Campus in Kansas City.

Alexander won the 2002 Confederation Internationale des Accordeonistes (CIA) 55th Coupe Mondiale World Accordion Championship hosted by the Danske Harmonikaspilleres Landsforbund (DHL) in Copenhagen, Denmark.

While different CIA categories have been won in subsequent years when Jerome Richard won the Virtuoso Entertainment Category (1997) and then the Coupe Mondiale (1999), Alexander became the first contestant to ever win two categories in the same year - the "Coupe Mondiale World Accordion Championships" and "International Competition for Piano Accordion".

Alexander, a student of Viatcheslav Semionov recently appeared as a guest artist at the Australian Accordion Teachers Association National Festival in Sydney, Australia and the New Zealand Accordion Association Championships and Festival held in Auckland, New Zealand. He will also be appearing at the American Accordionists Association Festival in Philadelphia (USA) in July.

Mika Väyrynen performed at the opening concert of the Sibelius Festival in Loviisa on June 11th. His program included "Chamber Music V - Barabbas Variations" for accordion and string quintet, composed by Aulis Sallinen, a well known composer in Finland and throughout the world. Sallinen has composed many operas, chamber music and solo pieces for different instruments and is especially known for his operas.

Mika performed with Jan Söderblom (violin), Emma Vähälä (violin), Matti Hirvikangas (viola), Jan-Erik Gustafsson (cello - artistic director of the Sibelius Festival) and Ville Väätäinen (double bass). This is first time an accordionist has been invited to perform in this festival.

Contributed by Véronique Duvergie

The 11th Festival des hauts de Garonne will be held in Bordeaux from June 23rd to July 11th, organized by Musiques de Nuit Diffusion. The event will include a variety of concerts by international accordion performers such as Richard Galliano, Marc Perrone (Italy), Juan Roberto Rodriguez (Cuba), Cuarteto Cedron (Argentina), Régis Gizavo (Madagascar) and Stian Carstensen (Norway).

These performances will be staged at Domaine Beauval (Bassens), Château Tranchère (Cenon), Parc du Castel (Floirac) and Parc de Bois Fleuri (Lormont). For further details email: mdn@free.fr

Contributed by Carolina Soler

The Estampas Porteñas tango group (Argentina) will visit New Zealand, performing shows at the Theatre Royal in Christchurch from July 29th to August 2nd. The show is part of the 5th biennial Christchurch Arts Festival held from July 17th to August 3rd, which will include the best of New Zealand and the World's most exciting and innovative artists and shows.

Estampas Portenas includes a quartet of gifted musicians (including a bandoneonist) and a fabulous singer, combined with six highly talented and multi-skilled dancers - Argentina's hottest tango show around! Combining the three elements of tango (dance, poetry and music) and subtle changes of costumes, lighting and mood, this group of talented performers from Buenos Aires will take you through the history and evolution of this most alluring and passionate of dance forms.

For show bookings phone: +64 3 366 6326

Vincenzo Abbracciante in Concert - Italy

Contributed by Holda Paoletti-Kampl

Young accordionist Vincenzo Abbracciante held a series of concerts recently with his new trio, "I Tangheri", which includes Antonio Di Lorenzo (drums) and Davide Penta (bass). Their first performance was held on May 2nd at the "Begùla Jazz Cafè", and was followed by concerts at the UNIKA Performing Arts Academy in Bari (where the trio accompanied actor Rocco Chiumarulo and the "Altradanza" dance company), at the "Miles Cafè" in Bari (May 22nd) and at the Masseria Garrappa in Monopoli (23rd).

On Mother's Day (May 11th) Vincenzo performed with Antonio Greco (percussion) and the FISA-BAND, which comprises of all his accordion students. Together they played Violentango and Libertango by Piazzolla. All concerts were very well received both by the audience and by the critics.

The San Francisco Free Folk Festival will be held this month in San Francisco. The event will include a variety of performances and workshops. Performers include "Tipsy House" (with concertina player Jack Gilder) and "Dogwatch" which includes Claire Norman (concertina, Appalachian dulcimer, Irish harp and guitar), Craig Johnson (accordion, piano and guitar), Gary Keep (concertina, mandolin, penny whistle and guitar), Robert Hill (banjo, violin, mandolin and guitar) and Roger Bramble (harmonica).

The festival workshops include Concertina by Riggy Rackin, Beginning Button Accordion by Paul Kostka and Piano Accordion by Art Peterson. For information email: info@sffolkfest.org

The "Stationary Willberies" will perform at the Village Square (Dorfplatz) in Oberglatt (near Zurich Airport) in Switzerland on August 23rd. This concert will be held in conjunction with the "850 Years of Oberglatt" celebrations. The group, which consists of Alan Hess (accordion), play a mixture of Irish/Scottish/Manx Folk together with blues, rock and roll and oldies. For details email: manxli@bluewin.ch

Contributed by Uli Ebner

The Schlüchttal-Akkordeon-Orchester Gurtweil traveled to Mainau Island last month to take part in a special music day. Over 50 groups attended the event, which was held under the patronage of Countess Bernadett. The Gurtweiler youth group performed a varied program during the afternoon, including "Wusel´s Abenteuer im Weltraum" (Wusel's adventure in Space). The excited audience awarded them with a standing ovation and would not let the group leave the stage without an encore. After the performance the musicians had time to sightsee the island's beauty, before returning home.

Jacomucci Tours with the Contras Tango Ensemble - France and Turkey

Contributed by Holda Paoletti-Kampl

ContrasTango, an ensemble featuring Claudio Jacomucci (accordion), Diego Conti (violin), Mauro De Federicis (guitar) and Gabriele Pesaresi (double bass) performed recently at the Chapelle de la Trinité in Lyon (France), and in Ankara and Izmir (Turkey) by invitation from the Italian Cultural Institute. The new ensemble offers a repertoire built around tango (Kancheli, Crivelli, Stravinsky, Zappa, Piazzolla) and was very successful on this tour. Upon his return from Turkey, Claudio and Diego Conti gave a performance in Spoltore (province of Pescara, Italy) based solely on improvisation.

Accordionist Jon Hammond performed live on Radio KCSM this week with music director Jesse "Chuy" Varela in San Mateo, California. Jon talked about his life, career and new CD "Hammond's Bolero". In addition tracks from this CD were played including "Six Year Itch", "Jennifer's Song" and "Soon I Will Be Free".

Earlier this week Jon also entertained to a full house at Laguna Honda Hospital and at the Irish Cultural Center in San Francisco with Jimi James (guitar).

Swap Tours Japan

"Swap" have just completed a successful concert tour to Japan, performing at the May Theatre in Osaka, the Blue Note in Nagoya and the Star Pines Café in Tokyo. The group, which includes accordionist Karen Tweed have completed tours of Sweden and England so far this year.

Contributed by Tom Torriglia

The San Francisco Accordion Festival will be held at The Cannery in San Francisco, California on June 15th. This free festival will include performances by six accordion-based bands, each playing different types of music including polka, Italian, swing and Tejano. For details email: tom@ladyofspain.com

Contributed by Mike O'Regan

The Sheffield Accordion Club will present Alexander Korbakov in concert, on June 17th at the Sheffield Polish Club in Sheffield, NOT at the Laycocks Sports Club as previously notified. For further details email: mike.oregan@ntlworld.com

June is National Accordionist Awareness Month in the USA. Sam Gentry has invited all accordionists in the Austin, Texas area to contact him if you have an idea for an interesting accordion activity.

Past events include a "Free For All" at the Central Texas Accordion Association's Senior Center (held on June 10th), and a performance by Ed Kadlecek and the Fun Bunch at the Texas Folklife Festival in San Antonio from June 5th to 8th.

Future planned events include an Accordion Roundup at the Broken Spoke on June 24th, and a "Squeeze-Off" at the West Accordion Club in West, Texas on June 28th. For further details email: sgentry@texas.net

A new Celtic Music CD entitled "Full Steam Ahead" is now available from Foot Stompin' Records. This debut CD is by a group of sisters aged from 13 to 17 years called "Give Way". The sisters have won BBC Radio 2's Young Folk Award in 2001, a Danny Award at Glasgow's Celtic Connections in 2001 and were invited to appear on the BBC TV's Hogmanay Live 2002 show, where they performed alongside Aly Bain, Phil Cunningham and Academy winner David Sneddon. They were also nominated in this years Scots Traditional Music Awards.

"Give Way" play a variety of traditional and contemporary folk music on accordion, violin, electric keyboards and drums. For CD details email: footstompin@blueyonder.co.uk

www.accordions.com/duo Updated information on the Paris-Moscou Duo, which includes Domi Emorine and Roman Jbanov

www.accordions.com/contet Updated information on French accordionist Pascal Contet