Akkordeonale 2026
A festival is coming of age!
When it was first launched in 2009, the Akkordeonale was still busy pulling the accordion out of its niche existence and putting it in the spotlight. The festival quickly became an extraordinary experience across all cultures and styles, always innovative, exhilarating and refreshingly different. A unique declaration of love for what Akkordeonale founder Servais Haanen calls the most beautiful instrument in the world.
For Servais, this will be his last tour before handing the festival over to younger hands (...an era continues!).
Good reasons to invite musicians and companions from various Akkordeonale years:
You can look forward to an ensemble mix full of sparkling temperament, esprit and poetry with southern Brazilian gaucho music, Rembetiko and Balkan jazz from the Greek metropolis, intimate, expressive minimal music in Italian, virtuoso French keyboard magic, Dutch sound aesthetics, unconventional cello and a grooving saxophone. As always, pulsating alternations between solos and ensemble pieces are at the heart of the Akkordeonale.
As different as the personalities, cultural backgrounds, and playing styles may be, the common language of music creates a lively understanding that does not care about borders and barriers. Exciting interactions, musical richness, and the joy of performing together interweave into something completely new, never heard before.
A celebration of sounds! Adrenaline and balm for the soul!
See — Listen — Enjoy
The Musicians:
- Adriana de Los Santos (Brasil)
- Gaucho women power
- Zabou Guérin (France)
- Colorful – Lively – Virtuoso
- Maurizio Minardi (Italy)
- Fellini on the accordion
- Dimos Vougioukas (Greece)
- Specialties from Mount Olympus
- Servais Haanen (Netherlands)
- The Master of Fine Sounds
- Diogo Picão (Portugal)
- Saxophone
- Johanna Stein (Germany)
- Cello
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.
Like almost no other instrument, the accordion (invented in 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.
