John Stanley Body was a New Zealand composer, ethnomusicologist, photographer, teacher, and arts producer. As a composer, his work comprised concert music, music theatre, electronic music, music for film and dance, and audio-visual gallery installations. A deep and long-standing interest in the music of non-Western cultures – particularly South-East Asian – influenced much of his composing work, particularly his technique of transcribing field recordings. As an organiser of musical events and projects, Body had a significant impact on the promotion of Asian music in New Zealand, as well as the promotion of New Zealand music within the country and abroad.
RNZ Concert is a publicly funded non-commercial New Zealand FM fine music radio network. Radio New Zealand owns the network and operates it from its Wellington headquarters. The network's playlist of classical, jazz, contemporary, and world music includes recordings by local musicians and composers. Around 15 percent of its airtime features live concerts, orchestral performances, operas, interviews, features, and specialty music programs, many of them recorded locally.
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.
The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra (NZSO) is a symphony orchestra based in Wellington, New Zealand. The national orchestra of New Zealand, the NZSO is an autonomous Crown entity owned by the New Zealand Government, per the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Act 2004. It is currently based in the Michael Fowler Centre and has frequently performed in the adjacent Wellington Town Hall before it was closed in 2013. It also performs in Auckland, Christchurch and Dunedin.
Sir William David Southgate is a New Zealand conductor and composer. He was the first New Zealand-based artist to be knighted.
Frank Anderson Tyrer was an English concert pianist, composer and first conductor of New Zealand's National Orchestra.
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.
Frank L. Marocco was an American piano-accordionist, arranger and composer. He was recognized as one of the most recorded accordionists in the world.
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.
Andrew Perkins is a New Zealand composer, choral conductor and teacher. He has had a number of works recorded and performed internationally.
Franko Božac is a classical accordion performer.
Boris Pigovat is an Israeli composer. Many of his works have been performed throughout the world. He studied at Gnessin Music Institute in Moscow. Between 1978 and 1990 he lived in Tajikistan, and immigrated to Israel in 1990. In 2002 he received his Ph.D. degree from Bar-Ilan UniversityArchived 2007-05-09 at the Wayback Machine (Israel).
Taonga pūoro are the traditional musical instruments of the Māori people of New Zealand.
Kenneth Young is a composer, conductor, radio presenter and lecturer in composition, conducting and orchestration at the New Zealand School of Music, Massey University and Victoria University of Wellington. As a composer, Young has had works commissioned by New Zealand and Australian orchestras and arts organisations including the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra New Zealand International Arts Festival and Chamber Music New Zealand. He works as a freelance composer and is fully represented by SOUNZ: The Centre for New Zealand Music. In 1976, Young became the principal tuba for the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and first conducted the orchestra in 1985 becoming Conductor in Residence in 1993. In 2001, he resigned from the orchestra to become a full-time conductor, composer and recording artist for orchestras in New Zealand and Australia, as well as engagements in Japan and the United Kingdom. He is well known for his interpretation of Romantic, 20th Century, New Zealand and Australian orchestral repertoire and in 2012 conducted both the winning album, Angel at Ahipara and finalist album, Releasing the Angel, for Best Classical Album at the New Zealand Music Awards. Young has been recorded by EMI, Atoll Records, Continuum, Trust Records, ABC Classics and Naxos and is a frequent presenter on RESOUND, Radio New Zealand Concert introducing and contextualising work from the RNZ archives. In 2004 was awarded the Lilburn Trust Citation in Recognition of Outstanding Services to New Zealand Music.
The Auckland Symphony Orchestra (ASO) is a New Zealand community-based symphony orchestra formed in 1975 by founding musical director Gary Daverne.
Volodymyr Petrovych Runchak is a Ukrainian accordionist, conductor and composer who was born on June 12, 1960, in Lutsk where in 1979 he attended its music college. In 1984 he was a winner of the Republican Accordion Competition and the same year began studying conducting at the Kiev Conservatory where he also studied composing two years later. In 1988 he joined National Union of Composers of Ukraine and remained there till this day. He has conducted over 100 works which he performed in his native Ukraine, and then went to Kazakhstan and France. Currently he serves as a member of the New Music Association and is a founder of New Music Concert Series.
An accordion concerto is a solo concerto for solo accordion and symphony orchestra or chamber orchestra.
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.
Leonie Joyce Holmes is a New Zealand composer and lecturer at the University of Auckland with an interest in music education.
