Akkordeonale 2012

Every year since 2009, Dutchman Servais Haanen has invited musicians from different countries to come and play together and to show, despite their cultural diversity, their common musical heritage; the accordion. The Akkordeonale demolishes the old cliché of the accordion being merely the instrument of traditional folkmusic. At the festival, one gets to hear the astonishing musical variety of the instrument: from traditional to contemporary, encompassing virtuosity, vivacity and highly individual styles. This year a colourful mix of Argentine tango, Balkan gypsy, Styrian jazz and Scottish folk awaits the audience, mixed with Haanen’s musical aesthetic and enriched with violin and trombone.

As different as the instruments (chromatic piano accordion, diatonic button accordion, bandoneon) are the musicians’distinct approaches and techniques. Where one is academically trained with a highly acclaimed classical education, the other cannot read musical scores but has learned the instrument as a matter of cultural course from earliest childhood on.

These diverse approaches come together into a gripping coexistence on stage.

But the Akkordeonale doesn’t see itself as just a platform for presenting cultural characteristics of musical styles. It seeks to create something new, something entirely original and exciting. Existing musical cultures mix and merge on stage, to form new flavours and intense sensations.

Servais Haanen knows how to top the evening off with his dry sense of humour and expertise, telling anecdotes about the musicians and interesting facts about their instruments and styles. In keeping with the motto “accordion is a beautiful instrument, even if others argue the opposite!”. With this festival he strikes one more blow for this much-loved and often underestimated instrument, which promises: there’s a great deal of music within!

See – Hear – Enjoy!

Af­fec­tion­ately known as squeeze­box, belly pinch­er, hell’s bel­lows, or asth­mat­ic worm, the ac­cor­di­on has at least as much charm as it has names.

And though many do love this in­stru­ment, play it them­selves or have one stowed away in the at­tic, few know about the wild ca­reer and the world wide in­flu­ence of this head­strong won­der-box.

As nearly no oth­er in­stru­ment, the ac­cor­di­on (in­ven­ted 1829) has spread across fron­ti­ers and con­tin­ents at a breath­tak­ing pace.

Massively ex­por­ted to colon­ies and im­por­ted through the hand lug­gage of emig­rants, it has es­tab­lished it­self amongst mu­si­cians across the whole world.

It’s hard to talk of the ac­cor­di­on. The in­stru­ment has again and again been mod­i­fied, re­con­struc­ted, re­fined or been de­veloped, ac­cord­ing to loc­al needs, in­to a vari­ety of dif­fer­ent types of in­stru­ments, that dif­fer in size, sys­tem, form, pitch range and play­ing tech­nique.