2021 Leeds International Organ Festival hosts accordion again!

[saundersbp]

Dear Forum,

Another great concert today available on YouTube in the 2021 Leeds International Organ Festival featuring Miloš Milivojević on accordion.


And also in case you missed it from last year.


and a podcast

Owen Murray by Pipe Up! The Organ Podcast

Owen Murray, Head of Accordion at the Royal Academy of Music, joins guest presenter Ben Saunders to introduce us to the accordion ahead of Monday’s LIOF Live recital by Qianyu Zhang, one of Owen’s students. Born in Scotland, and now splitting his time between Copenhagen and London, Ben and Owen...

anchor.fm

Hopefully live concerts will be back for 2022!

 

[Ffingers]

The podcast with Owen Murray was highly instructive on many fronts, not the least being the prejudices about the accordion being induced by the severe limitations of the Stradella system when it comes to more serious/classical music.
I found that the sound quality of the podcast made it difficult to understand at times, but I will go over it again wearing a good headset.

 

[saundersbp]

Thanks for listening. If you are having problems with the sound, try a different platform, it's on Google podcasts, apple podcasts etc.as well. We did it over lockdown so it was an internet call!

 

[Walker]

Brilliant to see accordionists at the Leeds International Organ Festival. Another step towards the accordion being connected to a world outwith it's usual confines. Great work.

I expect you will have some more accordionists organised for this year's festival. Any names you can share with us?

 

[saundersbp]

Djordje Gajic and Valerie Barr - two people with Scottish connections!

 

[Walker]

That's excellent news! Thanks for sharing that.

Can I ask saundersbp, being a concert organist and an accordionist - you must have some pretty special accordions! I know you are a Bugari and Pigini man. But what model of instruments do you play?​

 

[saundersbp]

I live between two homes so that justifies two accordions I don't have anything especially posh as I think persuing the perfect accordion is substituting consumerism for time spent making music. On that theme I have a cheap old 1970s Bentley piano probably worthless, but which is more than adequate for preparing for concerts on snazzy organs.

The one I play most is a small ellegaard special (i.e.vintage Pigini). It has blinds you can close on the front which hugely improves tone and an especially vile wide musette which I never use except to torture visitors. It was a killer deal as unknown to me it also came with the special deluxe rusty reeds option which improves the tone further over a modern Pigini. Strangely despite being so ancient and getting a very good hammering from me, it remains in good tune and good action. This was £1000 from a furniture auction in Kirby Lonsdale. I was going to buy another button accordion there at the same time that was cheaper but it disintegrated in my hands when I picked it up!

The other is a new Bugari ars540c. I like the compact ergonomics and the fact you can play it very gently and it speaks tonally top drawer.

The biggest impact on how an instrument sounds is how it's played and then the acoustic it is played in. I've played a plastic melodica in cathedral acoustics and it beats the sound of a zillion pound oboe played in a carpeted room stuffed with soft furnishings. ?

 

[Tom]

I live between two homes so that justifies two accordions I don't have anything especially posh as I think persuing the perfect accordion is substituting consumerism for time spent making music. On that theme I have a cheap old 1970s Bentley piano probably worthless, but which is more than adequate for preparing for concerts on snazzy organs.

The one I play most is a small ellegaard special (i.e.vintage Pigini). It has blinds you can close on the front which hugely improves tone and an especially vile wide musette which I never use except to torture visitors. It was a killer deal as unknown to me it also came with the special deluxe rusty reeds option which improves the tone further over a modern Pigini. Strangely despite being so ancient and getting a very good hammering from me, it remains in good tune and good action. This was £1000 from a furniture auction in Kirby Lonsdale. I was going to buy another button accordion there at the same time that was cheaper but it disintegrated in my hands when I picked it up!

The other is a new Bugari ars540c. I like the compact ergonomics and the fact you can play it very gently and it speaks tonally top drawer.

The biggest impact on how an instrument sounds is how it's played and then the acoustic it is played in. I've played a plastic melodica in cathedral acoustics and it beats the sound of a zillion pound oboe played in a carpeted room stuffed with soft furnishings. ?

Now that's one heavy oboe, be careful!