Hi Andy,
I rarely reply to social media posts however this is one of those rare times that I feel a post warrants a comment as I get a strong feeling yours is directly aimed at me and mine. Therefore there are a few things that for the sake of clarity I feel need to be said.
1) In my opinion if you are going to make comments you should be brave enough to put your real name to them (even though we know who you are).
2) You have never been to one of our festivals, have no experience of them and therefore are in no position to judge the quality of our events.
3) If you had any serious knowledge of the UK accordion scene you would know UK players of any standard are hard to find. I am proud to support many of them as this is for the benefit of the ‘accordion world’ that many of us love and support. You refer to the international players as if they were the only good players worth listening to. That is highly insulting to many great UK musicians and shows either your bias or lack of knowledge. Are you really suggesting that the likes of Paul Chamberlain, Stefan Andrusyschyn, Ian Watson, Gary Blair, myself etc are not worth listening to?
4) You imply that all we do is have wartime sing-alongs at our shows. Again you obviously speak from a point of ignorance. Music at our Eastbourne Accordion Festival last weekend ranged from folk to jazz, classical to world and electronic accordion music that included War of the Worlds, Oxygene and more. By no measure can you call that old fashioned!
5) While I am at it, FYI, I also wish to point out we have supported Heather for many years having subscribed to her magazine and advertised her festivals on AccordionCentral.com website. I think it is a great shame that she has never willingly supported us for the good of the accordion fraternity and worse now has you posting insults on her behalf in the hope you might get a bit more trade.
6) I stand by our production values, which consistently get incredibly high ratings from our guests. These are just a few things I am very proud of. Our hotel venues are clean and comfortable. The quality of meals always rates as excellent. We allow day and weekend visitor passes. We do not charge our traders for trade space, EVER. We pay ALL our concert artistes and at minimum cover all board and lodging of our teachers. We programme our concert sets so artistes know when to play and guests know what is happening during our shows. We bring ALL our own lighting, staging, audio & video production including big screens either side of our stage. Our production levels are second to none!
7) I think it is important to note your comments also insult the guest players that play in the orchestras. In case you forget, guests pay everyone’s wages, how dare you pick fault with those that spend their hard earned money with us, it again shows your ignorance in the matter. Further you insult some of the most respected accordion teachers in the country and I suggest you now owe an apology to Angie Lukins, Sammie Catling, Gennaro Fiondella, Jean Hanger, Ian Watson, Julie North, Nigel Pasby, Rosemary Wright, to mention just a few of our teachers
8) Artistes already booked and advertised for 2019 include The Paris Moscow Duo (2nd visit to our events) and Gianluca Campi (3rd visit to our events). I cannot currently tell you more than that at the moment as I do not post artiste names up until they are confirmed. Again are you really questioning our standard? I suggest you look at the long list of ‘world class’ players that we have booked since 2003 to see the high quality of our festivals.
9) You might also be interested to know I am also a British Accordion Champion and have been a professional accordion entertainer since 1979, if you still question my ability to run an event I would be more than happy to discuss the matter with you.
10) I invite you to either openly make clear that in no way are any of your comments aimed at our festivals. If this is the case and I have got the wrong end of the stick (something I seriously doubt), my comments above will not apply. However your comments pretty much speak for themselves and others on this forum certainly seem to think so as well. I think you should apologise profusely and suggest that Heather might also like to disassociate herself from your comments.
I would be more than happy to book a room for Heather and yourself for Eastbourne 2019, then you would see some top class accordion players, some great orchestras and just generally experience how WE do things around here!
Finally I would invite you to ponder on this. I have been fortunate enough to meet some fabulous accordionists in my time as a professional musician and many would give up everything for the instrument they love. Our accordion world is too small in the UK and we should all be doing our best to promote it, not rip it down. However all to long there have been people trying to milk our business for everything they can get. There are too many that want to stick the boot in to those whose interests are pure. There are also those that just want their fifteen minutes of fame. Which are you?
