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This week I would like to remind everyone about our Yellow Pages listing of restaurants, where the accordion is featured on a regular basis. There are many thousands of accordion enthusiasts travelling throughout the world every week, and listings like this gives them the opportunity to find out where to eat and meet accordionists at the same time! If you perform regularly at a restaurant, or have been to a restaurant where the accordion was featured, tell everyone about it at:
Wayne Knights
"CITTÀ DI LATINA" MUSIC COMPETITION - ITALY Contributed by Renzo Ruggieri The 3rd "Città di Latina" competition for young musicians will be held from April 30th to May 3rd in Latina, Italy. The accordion will be presented in different styles such as classical, variety, MIDI, and orchestras. Great prizes are offered and the jury is made up of specialists in each of the fields involved. The competition is organised by artistic director Roberto Rogato of the "Musica & Musica" Modern Academy.
For further information contact Accademia Moderna "Musica & Musica": INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL "PLAY, MY BAYAN" - RUSSIA Contributed by V. Bremeneva The chromatic accordion or bayan got its name from the Russian folk story-teller Boyan. The 2nd International Festival "Play, My Bayan" was held on March 1st and 2nd in Rzhev, one of the oldest cities of Russia, on the Volga river. The main idea of this festival was to show people the diversity of the bayan. More than 40 performers from Russia and abroad attended the Festival. Jury members included Yury Dranga, Mikhail Imkhanitsky, Vladimir Besfamilnov and Gennady Nizovsky. The competition was run in three categories:
In addition to the competition and concert program there was a conference about accordion history and development of accordion arts, and an accordion exhibition from the Voronezh Musical Instruments Company. REEDS AND STRINGS COMBINATION - SOUTH AFRICA Contributed by Sergio Zampolli Accordion virtuoso Sergio Zampolli joined forces with Amarillie Ackermann (harp) in 1995 to create an unusual ensemble called Duo 2000. They believe there is no other duet group like theirs, elsewhere in the world. The duo perform frequently in many parts of South Africa. Their repertoire includes works by Bach, Tchaikovsky, Khatchaturian, Mascagni, Albeniz, Ketelbey, Johann Strauss Jr, Wagner, Grieg, Liszt, some lighter works by Andre Popp and Robert Maxwell, plus some of their own arrangements. Sergio is the South African representative for the Confederation Mondiale de l'Accordeon, has won numerous awards in South African accordion competitions and has performed numerous times on radio and television. In November 1997, the duo released their first CD entitled "Song to the Evening Star". For further information phone: + 11 646 4952 or email: elitechemicals@global.co.za DANCING ACCORDIONS - SEATTLE, USA Contributed by Toby Hanson
The concert lasted approximately one hour and orchestra members generously volunteered their services to the cause of new music. Toby Hanson's polka band, The Smilin' Scandinavians performed with guest accordionist Tom Demski. The final piece of the recital was a set of variations on Lady of Spain, arranged for accordion and piano. At the completion of the program they had a jam session with three accordions, banjos, guitar, piano, fiddle, and polka band with everybody up dancing. A great night was had by all! SQUEEZIN MORE THAN GRAPES AT WINE FAIR - CHINA Contributed by Wu Jie From March 18th to 28th, the '98 Spring Candy & Wine Fair will be held in Chengdu Exhibition Centre in Chengdu, China The opening ceremony will be held at 10am at the Centre Square and will begin with an accordion orchestra of 200 students from the Sichuan Accordion School who will perform "Spring's Coming". It is estimated that there will be over 30,000 people watching their performance.
DUELLING ACCORDIONS - UK Contributed by David Batty The Wyre Accordion Club (formally the Blackpool Accordion club) meeting on February 18th included entertainment by eight accordionists performing pieces like The Long Long Trail, American Patrol, tunes from the 30's, 40's and 50's and David Batty's own arrangement of Duelling Banjo's which is called "Duelling Accordion".
SAXON ACCORDION COMPETITION - GERMANY Contributed by Andrea Rautenberg The Saxon Accordion Competition is held annually on the first Saturday in October and is open to amateur accordionists from Saxony. This year's venue is the Heinrich-Schütz-Konservatorium in Dresden, Saxony, Germany. The solo competition has six solo categories:
8 years and under
There will also be duo and chamber music categories. Application forms
and registrations are available until July 20th from: ACCORDIONIST AT ITALIAN FESTIVAL - USA Contributed by Jim Wangemann Accordionist Jim Wangemann and his wife Elzora returned home recently from a month long cruise of New Zealand and Australia, meeting with accordionists in Auckland on the way. Jim is keen to promote the accordion in Iowa, so three days after returning home, he was performing Italian music at an Italian Festival at the Des Moines Golf and Country Club, Iowa, USA from March 5th to 7th. JAPANESE TEX-MEX ACCORDIONIST PROVES POPULAR Contributed by Kenji Katsube
The group plan to participate in the annual "Tejano Conjunto Festival" San Antonio, Texas which will be held from May 12th to 17th, as they have done for the last four years. Each night three to five thousand people are expected to attend.
ACCORDION FEATURED IN NEW MUSIC SCHOOL - CHINA Contributed by Wu Jie A new music school has been founded by accordionist Mr Lin Yulin in Chongzhou, a small city fifty miles from Chengdu, China. This is the first music school in the area and is presently offering accordion courses on Saturday and Sunday to 40 students aged from 7 to 13 years old. Lin Yulin believes there will be increasing numbers of accordion students in the near future. "So many people in this small city like music, especially accordion, as it is a very convenient musical instrument. Many children can not study accordion for the lack of musical instruments. Now, I can help them buy the instruments from Chengdu, so I will have over 300 accordion students in the second half of this year." said Lin Yulin. CAJUN ORCHESTRA ADDS ACCORDION - USA Contributed by Christine Adams On March 7th at Berkeley, California, USA the popular California Cajun Orchestra performed for four hours, featuring Danny Poullard on accordion. Other group members include Eric Thompson (guitar), Suzy Thompson (violin), Sam Siggins (bass) and David Hymowitz (drums). The orchestra have been playing together for over 14 years and the audience enjoyed the opportunity of hearing Cajun accordionist Danny Poullard perform with them. DIATONIC ACCORDIONIST'S NEW CD, MUSIC SCHOOL - SPAIN Contributed by Aitor Narbaiza Kepa Junkera is considered one of the most important diatonic accordion (trikitixa) players in Europe. On December 19th 1997, he performed a concert with his new group at the Congress and Festival Palace of Madrid. Since then, Kepa has been working in his new CD in San Sebastian and Madrid, which is due to be released in May. This double CD is the result of Kepa's numerous travels to Europe, Africa and America, where he has met many musicians that later have become friends. Kepa Junkera has started a school with hundred of pupils who are studying the diatonic accordion and following in his footsteps. His first original compositions were published in 1988. He composed the music for Tempomobile's new project, a dance company directed by Becky Seagle and will tour with them to Germany in May. ACCORDIONIST FEATURED ON TV MUSIC COMPETITION - NEW ZEALAND Contributed by Steve Collins Accordionist Tracey Collins was chosen from over 1,000 acts to compete in the McDonalds Young Entertainers, a very popular weekly TV show which is held annually over 13 weeks. Tracey performed "Cubanola" promoting the accordion (which looked great under lights with sparkling diamanties). After her performance, she was interviewed by show host Jason Gunn. Tracey's performance is due to be screened in June 1998. 
Subject: Accordions Worldwide Good Job. The page rules. The only problem that I found was when I tried to search for a topic, and got a list of links, none of them worked. Other than that, this is awesome. Keep up the good work! Mike Hi Mike, Thanks for the great comments - I'm really glad you're enjoying the site. With regards to the search engine on the site, I fixed this problem and tested it about 3 hours before your email arrived - it should now work well. Thanks again,
Wayne Knights |
On Sunday 8th March at 7pm accordionist Toby Hanson performed at a
Senior Recital in the Skinner Theatre, Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle, USA to an
enthusiastic audience. The program included polkas, waltzes,
schottisches, chamber works. A highlight of the evening was an
orchestral piece written by Toby called Amour, Rire, et Douleur which
was premiered by the Cornish Millennium Players in December 1997.
Accordionist Kenji Katsube and his band "Los Gatos" perform regularly in
Kyoto and Osaka, Japan, at clubs, restaurants and halls to large audiences.
On February 27th they performed at "Al Sur De La Frontera" (South of the Border),
Osaka. The enthusiastic audience danced the night away to the "Tex-Mex Polka" music.