Kansas City based Vivant! recently held a successful CD launch Concert and Signing Party in Kansas City. A multitalented ensemble of musicians, the member's primary musical training has been centred around the accordion, in addition to various other keyboard instruments and other acoustic and percussion instruments.
The focus of the group is to share the unique versatility of the accordion and the various styles of music that are possible to produce with the instrument, and is evident in the diverse assortment of material performed by the group including original works by Karen Fremar as well as a variety of transcriptions.
Musicians in the group include Janne Silfverberg - trombone, Gail Overly, Erica VandeVoort, Karen Fremar, Julie Silfverberg, Dee Siglar and Sarrah Cantrell - percussion.
Vladisalv
Pligovka of Belarus will hold accordion Master Classes in Sydney,
Australia, June 9th and 10th during the weekend of the Australian
International Accordion Championships run by the AATA.
Vladislav is an internationally renowned accordion concert artiste
and the winner of two prestigious international accordion competitions:
2007 Kiev International Accordion Competition and 2007 Klingenthal
International Accordion Competition.
The Master Classes by Vladisalv Pligovka are open to all interested
in participating. For more information and to enrol, before May 1st,
email: tanialm@optusnet.com.au
Mika
Väyrynen World Premiere of Kusiakov's last composition
- UK
Finnish
accordionist Mika
Väyrynen will perform the much anticipated World Premiere
of renowned composer Anatoli
Kusiakov's Sonata No. 7 ‘Misterium’ at a concert at
the Royal Academy of Music in London on April 14th.
Kusiakov's
last work before his untimely passing on July 11, 2007, this Sonata
No. 7 was dedicated to Mika.
While in London, Mika will also conduct a Master Class for students
of the Royal Academy of Music.
From London, Mika will travel to France to conduct two days of Master Classes at Le Conservatoire de Paris (Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique) on April 16th and 17th, where the Director of Accordion is the renowned accordionist Max Bonnay.
The 68th Annual Accordionists and Teachers Guild (ATG) Competition and Festival will be held in Nashville, Tennessee, from June 12th to 15th, at the Hotel Preston at 733 Briley Parkway, Nashville.
This year's festival will feature an outstanding array of virtuoso
accordionists including those from the USA and Russia. Featured artistes
include extraordinary Russian accordionist
Alexander Shirunov, former ATG Champion and recording artist Jeff
Lisenby and Seattle based Jazz musician Murl Allen Sanders.
In addition to these outstanding artistes, the festival will feature many activities such as workshops, concerts, the popular Festival Orchestra, various social events, and many other accordion activities of interest to everyone who likes the accordion.
Jean-Louis
Noton and Nono Venturini will give a concert on a para glider
at the ski-resort La Plagne in France on Friday the 18th of April.
They are going to fly above mountain resort "Plagne 2000"
and will play with an HF audio system for "l'apérot ski".....
The Albertbridge Accordion Band was formed on August 9th 1957, and it’s first members were seven members of the Boys Brigade who had reached 18 years of age, the leaving age, and who did not want to lose touch with each other. This group formed an accordion band, and one of them, Billy Cummings, has been the Treasurer since the very beginning. Eventually the band admitted female accordionists.
In Northern Ireland there is a long established tradition of bands that march through the streets on parades, and some of these are accordion bands. These bands wear uniforms, and include drummers in their ranks. The Albertbridge Accordion Band takes part in the annual Orange Day Parade on July 12th, and other parades and festivals linked to the Ulster Loyalist tradition.
The Albertbridge Accordion Band has high standards of performance and dress, but also enjoys playing to the crowds, and its members have a sense of humour.
The band’s website notes: “We have had many laughs with the funny things that happened to us, such as marching into the wrong street as the band went on up the road, getting flags caught in trees, competing with the Duke of York Pipe Band who were practising in the room upstairs, and we even had a mouse eat the Canadian flag”.
The Accordion Festival in Samara, a large city of European Russia, situated 2,600 km to the south of Moscow, took place from March 26th to 30th.
Amongst the Russian classical players were some French guest performers, including Alain Musichini with his jazz quartet and Joao Frade from Portugal, who were greeted very enthusiastically.
Last year Eric Bouvelle was a guest artist in this big festival organized by Sergueï Voitenko, the leader of the group BAYAN MIX, that popularises the classical music manner disco with dancers, video on screens plasma, light games being delirious etc.
The Russians are becoming much more interested in French music, players and instruments, such as those made by Cavagnolo, and the different styles of music they are performing.
Leading Scottish accordionist Tom Alexander, from Glasgow, goes on a short tour of English accordion clubs in mid-April. Tom Alexander is best known as half of Scottish show business legends The Alexander Brothers. The tour dates include:
April 11th – Club Accord, Birmingham
12th – Soar Valley Accordion Club, Leicester
15th – North Staffs AC
16th, 8pm – Stockport Accordion Club
Domi Emorine and Roman Jbanov have each won numerous accordion competitions, including world championships. In 1997 they began to perform together, and their styles complemented each other so well they formed the Paris-Moscow Duo, and have visited Canada, China, Denmark, Italy, Lithuania, Norway, Spain, Poland, Portugal, Switzerland and the UK. They often lead master classes in addition to concert performances, and in 2007 celebrate ten years together.
The Duo’s future dates include:
April 19th and 20th – concerts in the Salle du Foyer, Marcigny, Saône-et-Loire; email: ot.marcigny-semur@wanadoo.fr
May 9th to 13th – concerts and master classes at ‘Accordions International 2008’, Blackpool, UK. Also appearing Giancarlo Caporilli (Italy), Gary Blair, Romano Viazzani, Harry Hussey, Bert Santilly and Stefan Andrusyschyn, (UK); email: heather@accordions.karoo.co.uk
May 23rd and 24th – festival, Drancy, France
July 11th – festival, St Jeannet, France
July 18th to 20th – festival, Alcobaca, Portugal
August 9th to 14th – festival, La Bourboule, France
After its successful tour in 2007 TRIO P.S.P. (Perez-Sabatier-Pedreira) will be coming to Austria again. Ciro Perez performed with the big names of the ‘Tango’ Music during many years in Buenos Aires. Norberto Pedreira is a key ‘avant-garde’ Latin musician in the mix of the rhythms of the Latin-American continent. William Sabatier has an amazing knowledge and passion for the ‘Tanguera’ Culture. Since his teens, he has been spending his time with the best European Tango musicians.
Each of them has a very strong personality but once they put all their energy together, they become as ‘one’. They are on the same page, speak the same language called ‘Tango’ and above all, they have the same concept on how they should visualize, read, approach it. The magic and the deep connexion between Ciro, William and Norberto allows them to share intense and spontaneous moments of music. We can call them ‘Real Tangueros’.
William Sabatier - bandoneon is a Frenchman, Ciro Perez and Norberto Pedreira were born in Argentina, all three of them are living in Paris, France.
The tour dates will be as follows:
April 17th, 7pm - Rehab-Zentrum, Bad Tatzmannsdorf, Austria
18th, 8pm - Cult-beisl-restaurant, Wimpassing
19th, 8pm - Haus am Ring, Bad Leonfelden
21st, 8pm - LGV-Saal, Leibnitz
22nd, 8pm - Sargfabrik, Vienna
24th, 8.30pm - Völkermarkt, Step
25th, 8pm - Jazz-Keller, Schloss Porcia, Spittal / Drau
27th, 8pm - Freie Bühne Mayer, Mödling
Pearl Fawcett-Adriano is the guest artiste at Guildford Accordion Club on Friday April 18th, doors open at 7pm. The concert takes place at The Village Hall, Ripley, near Guildford, Surrey.
Spanish accordionist Ferran Martinez, performing a program on the Russian Bayan that includes music by C.Oudrid, A.Piazzolla, J.S.Bach, I.Albéniz and F.Tárrega, as follows:
April 19th – ‘La caixa’, Caldes de Montbui, Barcelona
27th - ‘La caixa’, Mataro, Barcelona
Accordionist Raimondas Sviackevicius and cellist Mindaugas Backus are very active promoters of contemporary Lithuanian music. They often perform together, work as soloists, as a trio with violinist Vytautas Mikeliunas, or with other groups.
The duo will tour Poland in April, promoting new works by Lithuanian composers Bronius Kutavicius, Jurgita Miezelyte, Anatolijus Senderovas, including a world premiere of Juste Janulyte’s work ‘Aria’. The duo’s concert dates include:
April 18th - festival in Sanok, Poland
20th - Miejski Dom Kultury music and poetry festival, Czechowice-Dziedzice
21st - Bielsko-Biala
22nd - ‘Musica moderna’ concert cycle, Academy of Music, Lodz
23rd - W.Lutoslawski's Forum for Contemporary Music, Lublin
The Craven Accordion Orchestra under the Musical Direction of Harry Hinchcliffe is delighted to be performing for the second year in succession in the Idyllic North Yorkshire town of Settle on 12th April 2008 at 7-30 pm.
The Concert to be held in Settle Parish Church will feature Soloists
from local schools from the Settle area. The orchestra will be performing
a varied repertoire of music ranging from popular classics such as
Granada by Lara, to Theme from Titanic "My Heart Will Go On",
swinging along to Little Boogie and no concert would complete without
a Traditional Tyrolean Polka/March.
The United States National
Accordion News has been updated to the April edition. The Feature
Review in April offers a summary of the recent National Accordion
Association Convention held in Texas.
MusicForAccordion.com
(MFA) Celebrates 1,000th eSheet Publication. The e-sheet music publication
section is celebrating a major milestone publishing its 1,000th
piece of music. MusicForAccordion.com has developed into an extensive
and popular online store containing accordion music of all levels
and styles available as downloadable .pdf files emailed to the client
who pay using the secure bank server credit card payment system.
English
Deutsch
Français
Italiano 
Español
Chinese 
Russian 
Vivant! hold CD Launch Concert, Kansas City - USA
The focus of the group is to share the unique versatility of the accordion and the various styles of music that are possible to produce with the instrument, and is evident in the diverse assortment of material performed by the group including original works by Karen Fremar as well as a variety of transcriptions.
Vladisalv
Pligovka of Belarus will hold accordion Master Classes in Sydney,
Australia, June 9th and 10th during the weekend of the Australian
International Accordion Championships run by the 
Finnish
accordionist 
ATG
In addition to these outstanding artistes, the festival will feature many activities such as workshops, concerts, the popular Festival Orchestra, various social events, and many other accordion activities of interest to everyone who likes the accordion.
The Albertbridge Accordion Band was formed on August 9th 1957, and it’s first members were seven members of the Boys Brigade who had reached 18 years of age, the leaving age, and who did not want to lose touch with each other. This group formed an accordion band, and one of them, Billy Cummings, has been the Treasurer since the very beginning. Eventually the band admitted female accordionists.
The Accordion Festival in Samara, a large city of European Russia, situated 2,600 km to the south of Moscow, took place from March 26th to 30th.
Leading Scottish accordionist Tom Alexander, from Glasgow, goes on a short tour of English accordion clubs in mid-April. Tom Alexander is best known as half of Scottish show business legends The Alexander Brothers. The tour dates include:
Domi Emorine and Roman Jbanov have each won numerous accordion competitions, including world championships. In 1997 they began to perform together, and their styles complemented each other so well they formed the 
After its successful tour in 2007 TRIO P.S.P. (Perez-Sabatier-Pedreira) will be coming to Austria again. Ciro Perez performed with the big names of the ‘Tango’ Music during many years in Buenos Aires. Norberto Pedreira is a key ‘avant-garde’ Latin musician in the mix of the rhythms of the Latin-American continent. William Sabatier has an amazing knowledge and passion for the ‘Tanguera’ Culture. Since his teens, he has been spending his time with the best European Tango musicians.
William Sabatier - bandoneon is a Frenchman, Ciro Perez and Norberto Pedreira were born in Argentina, all three of them are living in Paris, France.
Pearl Fawcett-Adriano
Ferran Martinez Concerts, Barcelona – Spain
Café
Accordion Orchestra performs an eclectic mix of vintage Swing, Latin,
American, and French Café Music. 
Accordionist 
Slovenian
accordionist Marko Hatlak performs in concert on Monday April 14th,
8pm, at Volksbad Jena, Knebelstraße 10, 07743 Jena, Germany.
