The timetable for the Trophée Mondial 2006 de l'Accordéon being held in Kragujevac, Serbia from the 4th to 8th of October, 2006 is now online.
There are four main competition classes, Senior Classique, Junior Classique, Senior Variété and Junior Variété and there will be a Congress of delegates on the last day of the event.
Daily reports of the event will be provided online at the website of the Confédération Mondiale de L’Accordéon – CMA during the event.
Accordion on BBC Television Programme, London – UK
Contributed by Romano Viazzani
The accordion will be featured on part of next week's ‘Inside Out’ television programme on BBC1 (London area only) at 7.30pm Monday October 2nd. Accordionists participating include Romano Viazzani, Ian Watson, Claudio Allodi, Neil Varley, and various others. Hopefully (and I say this tentatively) it will be a better effort than the BBC Arena programme The Accordion Strikes Back made in the 80s in that it at least features some UK/London accordionists. Hope you can watch it.
Teacher and performer Melba Jean Baxter Yale, known as “Mrs. Yale," to countless accordion students taught in a very long career, passed away peacefully at home at the age of 86. Melba Yale was a former Past President and member of the Accordion Federation of North America (AFNA). Together with her late husband, Oakley Yale, they formed the Yale Accordion Duo and performed many engagements and concerts, beginning what was a lifelong collaboration.
The ‘Yale Accordion Academy’, founded in Inglewood, California, developed into the internationally famous ‘Yale Accordion Symphony’, which made six critically acclaimed concert tours to Europe. Melba Yale was one of the most accomplished individuals ever to grace the United States’ accordion scene.
The new teaching book in the French language titled ‘The Accordion - New Technical Approach’, written by Frédéric Deschamps, is enjoying great success. The author writes: "Since I wrote an article in the French Magazine, I have sent out between 10 and 20 books a day…"
Additionally P. Fonroy has written (in French) an information sheet about the book and the author which is published on the website of Frédéric Deschamps.
Elsbeth Moser Visits Conservatory, Hanoi - Vietnam
From September 21st to 25th, Professor Elsbeth Moser, from Hanover, Germany, was on a working visit to Hanoi National Conservatory. Elsbeth Moser gave a Master Class for accordion and lectures on Training Methods and Art Performance to teachers and students of the Accordion and Guitar Faculty at Hanoi Conservatory. She demonstrated many new performance methods of musical works of the great Baroque composers such as Bach and Scarlatti, and contemporary composers such as Zolotarev, Ganzer and Gubaidulina, performed on accordion. “I wish to support Vietnamese accordionists to study to international level,” she said.
As planned, Professor Moser will be back to Hanoi in March 2007 for 10 days to continue her classes for students of the Hanoi National Conservatory Accordion Faculty and to give guidance for the development of the bayan accordion in Vietnam.
Michto Swing is an acoustic trio or quartet that plays Hot Club ‘manouche’ jazz and swing around the Gruyère region in Switzerland. The group has been performing for two years, and their repertoire includes the music of Django Reinhardt and compositions written by group members. The full line-up of Michto Swing is: Eva Slongo – violin/ vocals, from Germany; Jérôme Oberson – accordion, France; André Schornoz – double bass, Belgium; Yann Da Pozzo - guitar, Germany; Pascal Descloux –guitar, France.
For the eighth and final concert in its Meadowbrook series at the end of August, the Detroit Symphony opened the gate to a new world of music created by two of the most exciting composers of modern times, Astor Piazzola and Alberto Ginastera. Both represent the blended musical traditions of Spain and Argentina.
The showcase piece on the program was Piazzola's concerto for Bandoneon. Including as it does the prominent use of an instrument that until recently was rarely heard, the concerto revealed to us the unusual expressive powers of this amazing instrument. An energetic young conductor, Edwin Outwater, for whom the music seems like second nature, led the performance and the bandoneon virtuoso soloist, Peter Soave (picture left), played with technical perfection and full expression to the remarkable interweaving of the different threads of musical tradition that this work combines.
Piazzola's basic inspiration is, of course, the Argentinean Tango with all its shadowy moods and Latin rhythm. But Piazzola, once a student of the great teacher of composers, Nadia Boulanger, learned from her to be true to his native music as he enlarged it into a bigger, more comprehensive statement. The native Argentine moods and rhythms are all there, but are now disciplined (at least partly) by the classical form of the concerto. For anyone who loves both the tango tradition and the classical form, the result is irresistible, especially when performed with such expertise and abandon. Soave had it all.
Accordionist Alejandro Brittes performs a concert of Chamamé, a traditional style indigenous to Argentina, at the Casa de la Provincia de Tucumán, Suipacha, on September 28th, at 7.30pm. He will be accompanied by Irene Brittes – vocals, Ignacio Peralta – bajo, and Adrián Steinsleger – guitar. Other musicians performing at the concert include Jorge Toloza – guitar and vocals, Luis Santa Cruz – bandoneón, and Leo Solís – percussion.
The Eastbourne Accordion Festival, organised by former All Britain Champion John Romero, takes place at the Cumberland Hotel, Eastbourne, from October 13th to 16th.
The guest artistes include Pearl Fawcett-Adriano (picture left), David Lukins, Angie Lukins, Harry Hussey, Alan Young, Gennaro Fiondella, Alastair Cameron, and Charlie Watkins. Also present will be the leading accordion technician Alan Young, and the trade show includes The Accordion Shop, Trevani Studios, and WEM.
Guy Klucevsek (picture left). Stefan Schwieter's much acclaimed film, ‘Accordion Tribe: Music Travels’, is to be screened at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. on October 14th at 2.30 pm.
The National Gallery of Art web site writes: “Five squeezebox superstars — New York avantgardist Guy Klucevsek (who plays with John Zorn and Laurie Anderson); Slovenian punk rocker Bratko Bibic; classically influenced Maria Kalaniemi from Finland; blind and self-taught Otto Lechner from Germany; and rhapsodic Swede Lars Hollmer from Sweden; formed the ensemble Accordion Tribe to reinstate their underdog instrument to world-class standing. Travelling across Europe on a concert tour, the film ‘Accordion Tribe’ is a musical homage to this proud but beleaguered instrument. (Stefan Schwietert, 2004, 35 mm, English and German with subtitles, 87 minutes).”
This film, which was released in the Spring of 2005, soon received three awards: Swiss Art TV – ‘Best Film of the Year’, Swiss Film Prize – ‘Best Documentary’, and Wurzburg Film Festival – ‘Best Documentary’.
The Tribe screening at the National Gallery heralds the forthcoming accordion extravaganza, the 2007 Coupe Mondiale World Accordion Championships, which will take place in the DC area, from August 13th to 18th 2007, at the Holiday Inn in
historic Alexandria, Virginia. It will be followed by numerous accordion events to be announced in the coming months.
The Victor Pieto Trio will be performing on October 19th at 8pm at The Bacchus Room, 60 Second Ave, New York. Victor will be presenting some of his new compositions.
”Prieto plays accordion the way Toots Thielmans plays harmonica or Dino Saluzzi plays bandoneon. He transcends the instrument and just plays music.” – Budd Kopman, ‘All About Jazz’ magazine.
The Victor Prieto Trio is: Victor Prieto, accordion; Carlo DeRosa, bass; Allison Miller, drums.
Argentinean bandoneonist Daniel Binelli (picture right), widely acclaimed as one of the foremost exponents of the music of Astor Piazzolla, performs in the USA, as follows:-
November 13th - The Binelli- Ferman Duo at the Museo del Barrio, New York
20th - Binelli-Ferman duo with Jennifer Muller Dance Company, Museo del Barrio, New York City
25th - Binelli-Ferman Duo recital in Washington D.C.
29th - The Binelli-Ferman- Isaac Trio at Merkin Hall, New York
December 6th - Americas Society, New York, ‘Piazzolla- Borges’ -
Daniel Binelli (bandoneon), Polly Ferman (piano), Eduardo Isaac (guitar) Marcelo Balsells (voice).
Accordionist and vocalist Gérard Blanchard performs at l'Européen, 5 Rue Biot, 75017 Paris, on November 27th.
Gérard Blanchard, known equally as an a musician, composer and artist, has worked within the rock, punk, jazz and blues movements in a chequered career dating back to the early 1970s. His innovative approach to music has done much to promote the cause of the accordion in the general music scene in France.
Viatcheslav Semionov is to present a Master Class at the Urbino Istituto Musicale Pareggiato ‘G.Lettimi’, Associazione Musicale ‘Mantice Armonico’, on October 8th to 10th. The organiser is Claudio Jacomucci, and the fee is 120 Euros.
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There are four main competition classes, Senior Classique, Junior Classique, Senior Variété and Junior Variété and there will be a Congress of delegates on the last day of the event.
The accordion will be featured on part of next week's ‘Inside Out’ television programme on BBC1 (London area only) at 7.30pm Monday October 2nd. Accordionists participating include Romano Viazzani, Ian Watson, Claudio Allodi, Neil Varley, and various others. Hopefully (and I say this tentatively) it will be a better effort than the BBC Arena programme The Accordion Strikes Back made in the 80s in that it at least features some UK/London accordionists. Hope you can watch it.
New Accordion Method Book Enjoys Great Popularity - France
From September 21st to 25th, Professor Elsbeth Moser, from Hanover, Germany, was on a working visit to Hanoi National Conservatory. Elsbeth Moser gave a Master Class for accordion and lectures on Training Methods and Art Performance to teachers and students of the Accordion and Guitar Faculty at Hanoi Conservatory. She demonstrated many new performance methods of musical works of the great Baroque composers such as Bach and Scarlatti, and contemporary composers such as Zolotarev, Ganzer and Gubaidulina, performed on accordion. “I wish to support Vietnamese accordionists to study to international level,” she said.
Michto Swing, Gruyère - Switzerland
For the eighth and final concert in its Meadowbrook series at the end of August, the Detroit Symphony opened the gate to a new world of music created by two of the most exciting composers of modern times, Astor Piazzola and Alberto Ginastera. Both represent the blended musical traditions of Spain and Argentina.
The Eastbourne Accordion Festival, organised by former All Britain Champion John Romero, takes place at the Cumberland Hotel, Eastbourne, from October 13th to 16th.
This film, which was released in the Spring of 2005, soon received three awards: Swiss Art TV – ‘Best Film of the Year’, Swiss Film Prize – ‘Best Documentary’, and Wurzburg Film Festival – ‘Best Documentary’.
The Victor Pieto Trio will be performing on October 19th at 8pm at The Bacchus Room, 60 Second Ave, New York. Victor will be presenting some of his new compositions.
Argentinean bandoneonist Daniel Binelli (picture right), widely acclaimed as one of the foremost exponents of the music of Astor Piazzolla, performs in the USA, as follows:-
Accordionist and vocalist Gérard Blanchard performs at l'Européen, 5 Rue Biot, 75017 Paris, on November 27th.
