Accordions are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free reed aerophone type. The essential characteristic of the accordion is to combine in one instrument a melody section, also called the diskant, usually on the right-hand keyboard, with an accompaniment or Basso continuo functionality on the left-hand. The musician normally plays the melody on buttons or keys on the right-hand side, and the accompaniment on bass or pre-set chord buttons on the left-hand side. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist.
William Schimmel is an American musician and composer, who plays the accordion and is a promoter of the philosophy of "Musical Reality". He holds Bachelor of Music, Master of Science and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in composition from the Juilliard School, along with a diploma from the Neupauer Conservatory of Music in performance/composition. He is a major popularizer of the accordion, performs music in many genres, has commissioned and premiered hundreds of new works, has composed over 4000 works in every medium, has written a number of books and articles and has made numerous recordings and videos. He has composed over 4000 works in every medium including opera which have been performed by leading performers, ensembles and conductors including the Late Leopold Stokowski. His music has been featured in a number of films, most notably Scent of a Woman starring Al Pacino, where he appears in the famous Tango Scene with The Tango Project which he is a founding member and television shows.
John Serry Sr. was an American concert accordionist, arranger, composer, organist, and educator. He performed on the CBS Radio and Television networks and contributed to Voice of America's cultural diplomacy initiatives during the Golden Age of Radio. He also concertized on the accordion as a member of several orchestras and jazz ensembles for nearly forty years between the 1930s and 1960s.
George Shakhnevich is a Ukrainian-American accordionist, songwriter, composer, musician and former television personality.
Count Guido Pietro Deiro was a famous vaudeville star, international recording artist, composer and teacher. He was the first piano-accordionist to appear on big-time vaudeville, records, radio and the screen. he usually performed under the stage-name "Deiro". Guido and his younger brother Pietro Deiro were among the highest-paid musicians on the vaudeville circuit, and they both did much to introduce and popularize the piano accordion in the early 20th century.
coba, Yasuhiro Kobayashi, is a Japanese musician, accordionist, composer and arranger, born in Matsushiro, Nagano and brought up in Niigata, Niigata. His music has sold over 1,000,000 CDs.
Anthony Galla-Rini was a celebrated American accordionist, arranger, composer, conductor, author, and teacher, and is considered by many to be the first American accordionist to promote the accordion as a "legitimate" concert instrument.
Carmen Carrozza was one of America's premier concert accordionists, before he retired from performing after suffering a stroke. He was born in the village of Solano in Reggio di Calabria, Calabria, Italy, in 1921 and emigrated to the United States of America with his family at age 9, settling with them in Chappaqua, New York. He played piano and violin, but soon became enamored with the accordion's flexibility, how it could fit perfectly into an orchestra or sound like an orchestra itself.
Pietro Deiro was one of the most influential accordionists of the first half of the 20th century.
Joseph Michael Miskulin is an American accordionist and producer. In a music career spanning more than four decades, Joey Miskulin has collaborated with a range of artists including Johnny Cash, John Denver, Emmylou Harris, Paul McCartney, Ricky Skaggs, Ricky Van Shelton, Andy Williams, Frankie Yankovic, as well as many others. He is a performer, studio musician, producer and pedagogue.
Charles Magnante was an American piano-accordionist, arranger, composer, author and educator. His artistry helped raise the image of the accordion from an instrument considered suitable only for folk music to an instrument accepted in many music genres.
The accordion is in a wide variety of musical genres, mainly in traditional and popular music. In some regions, such as in Europe and North America, it has become mainly restricted to traditional, folk and ethnic music. Nonetheless, the button accordion (melodeon) and the piano accordion are widely taught and played in Ireland, and have remained a steady fixture within Irish traditional music, both in Ireland and abroad, particularly in the United States and Great Britain. Numerous virtuoso Irish accordion players have recorded many albums over the past century or so; the earliest Irish music records were made in the 1920s, in New York City, by fiddler and Sligo immigrant Michael Coleman, widely considered to have paved the way for other traditional musicians to record themselves. Accordions are also played within other Celtic styles, as well as in English traditional music, American traditional music, polka, Galician folk music, and Eastern European folk music.
Michael Edward Guerra, is a California-based accordionist, music producer, studio musician, and singer/songwriter.
Gary Michiel Daverne is a New Zealand musical arranger, composer, conductor, director and producer.
Nicholas Ariondo is an American accordionist, composer, pianist..."Ariondo's skills as a composer and arranger contribute enormously to the effectiveness of his performances" Keyboard Magazine/Titus Levi ...Throughout his career, the artistry of Nick Ariondo has created a large repertoire of original compositions & arrangements showcasing the accordion's dynamic range and artistic capabilities. His videos are a global presentation of diverse music styles and influences from traditional folk and ethnic to current modern classical forms. He is known for his work with various singers, such as Paul McCartney and Placido Domingo. A double Grammy Award winner with the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra, he became the first American to be awarded Italy's Ancona Prize for his "Kalamatiano for Viola & Free-bass Accordion", a contemporary composition utilizing Greek dance music as displayed in this video. Ariondo received over twenty awards from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) for his compositions and arrangements. Willard Palmer, historian, pianist, accordionist, composer, and editor for Alfred Music Publishing, nominated Ariondo for inclusion into the International Who's Who in Music.
An accordion concerto is a solo concerto for solo accordion and symphony orchestra or chamber orchestra.
Alexander Sevastian, "Sasha", was a well-known virtuoso Russian-Canadian accordionist.
Charles Cozens is involved in the music industry in Canada as an arranger for solo artists; a composer writing in multiple genres for diverse organizations including chamber ensembles, musical theatre, and television; a conductor and producer of crossover orchestral shows; a performer on piano and accordion in jazz, classical, and pop styles; and as a recording artist and producer.
Robert Davine was an internationally recognized concert accordionist and Professor of Accordion and Music Theory at the University of Denver's Lamont School of Music. As the chairman of the Department of Accordion for three decades, he is credited with establishing one of the few collegiate academic programs in advanced accordion studies offered in the United States during the 1950s. His concert performances of 20th century classical music with leading orchestras and chamber ensembles helped to demonstrate the accordion's suitability as an orchestral instrument on the modern concert hall stage.
