 History
of Accordions Worldwide
Updated for the 10th Anniversary of the Opening of Accordions Worldwide
on the 1st October 1996. Our thanks to Roberto Mangossi for the superb accordion
birthday graphic below.
1996
Small Beginnings
 Accordions
Worldwide began with a meeting called by Harley Jones,
Vice-President of the New Zealand Accordion
Association, in April 1996. The purpose of this meeting was to discuss
the potential possibilities of the internet and how it might be used to
best assist the development and popularity of the accordion.
Also considered
was the future needs of accordion education, entertainment, associations
and manufacturers in conjunction with the development of the internet.
Those
attending the initial meetings were: Harley Jones
(International solo artist with many symphony orchestras, teacher of many
New Zealand solo champions) Wayne Knights ( teacher
and now professional webmaster) Lionel Reekie (Professional
entertainer and teacher) Peter Masefield (Years of technical knowledge and
systems managing, now the Director of New
Zealand Internet Services Ltd) Campbell Bettridge (Teacher, former Austalasian
and South Pacific Champion and
3rd place getter in the Coupe Mondiale Piano Accordion Championships) Sarah
Langley (Teacher, former New Zealand
Champion, winner at ATG and AAA in the USA) Rhonda Morrison (Then first
accordion, Air New Zealand Accordion Orchestra)
Several
weekly meetings followed, after which everyone there began a two month study
of the internet with access to the internet provided free to assist their
study. Not able to be present at these meetings, but in close liaison with
Harley Jones, was then American
Accordionists' Association President Faithe Deffner,
who discussed the possibilities of the internet with a number of USA accordionists.
These studies highlighted that improved communications between accordionists
was one area where the internet could provide an extremely valuable service.
In a world becoming ever smaller, with greater ease of international travel,
freely available information about every facet of the accordion was considered
a high priority.
A
list of the types of information that accordionists wanted to have easy
access to was compiled and that became the basis of Accordions Worldwide.
This included Weekly News, Future Events, Associations, Publishers, Recordings,
Performers, Teachers, Manufacturers and many other types of information.
Another important development was the Accordion Yellow Pages Database with
the concept of free contact details for all accordionists, accordion businesses
and organisations, which was considered vital in encouraging maximum participation
from around the world.
Work Begins
In May 1996, Harley Jones approached fellow New Zealand
Accordion Association Committee member Wayne Knights
and asked him to become the Manager and Webmaster of the proposed internet
site. He accepted and work was formally started when Wayne
Knights began working full time on 6th June.
Within
a week he was joined by Peter Masefield, who had an extensive technical
ability and was able to organise the software and computer network systems.
The first task of Peter and Wayne was to examine the technical requirements
and goals of the business so they could put a budget in place.
This was
completed and on the 1st July, the decision to proceed was made by ower Harley Jones. A number of accordionists were
asked to work part time and full time, searching the world for information
for the Accordion Yellow Pages Database. A network of seven (then) powerful
Pentium computers was purchased and an office to put them in was quickly
organised.
This was followed by the purchase of two Pentium server computers
and latest software about a month later. Artists were hired to design the
graphics and artistically lay out each page. The
Aims and Purpose of the internet site were put in place, which was to provide
a readily accessible information service about all aspects of the accordion
for accordionists and enthusiasts.
The aim of the site is to benefit accordionists
and accordion enthusiasts by effectively utilising the advantages of modern
technology in a way that will assist the future growth and popularity of
the accordion worldwide. Accordion Terminology: The term accordion is used
throughout this site as a generic term that applies to ALL free-reed bellows
instruments. We want to support and promote the merits of them all.
Overseas Help
In mid August, Wu Jie, the son of Wu
Shouzhi, then President of the Chinese Accordion Association was invited
to start an office in China and he accepted this position and started on
the 29th August. Recent New Zealand resident Tatiana
Lanchtchikova was invited to permanently join our editorial staff, also
improving our links with Eastern Europe and Russia. Tatiana is now our Office
Manager and the webmaster of Search-Accordion
and the Accordion Yellow Pages
sites.
The
name of Accordions Worldwide was selected in late August and the Internet
addresses of www.accordions.com, www.akkordeon.com and www.accordeon.com
were approved. After that, the opening online date of 1st October 1996 was
decided and an enormous effort started to achieve opening within that extremely
short deadline. During September, Harley Jones
approached Holda Paoletti-Kampl in Castelfidardo, Italy
to be a representative of Accordions Worldwide.
Holda is now the European
Manager of Accordions Worldwide and is one of the key people in the success
of Accordions Worldwide.
It is a measure today of just how fast technology has changed the world,
that when Holda Paoletti-Kampl was asked to visit all the accordion factories
in Castelfidardo Italy seeking advertising, only one factory had email and
none had an internet site. What a MASSIVE change in the world of the accordion
in just 10 years! Accordions Worldwide wish to say a special thank you to
our first client – Borsini Accordions
who led the way.
Opening Day
The opening of Accordions Worldwide on the 1st October completed a frantic dash
to be ready. Ever optimistic Manager Wayne Knights
had organised a large party, with music provided by accordionists Maurice
Jones and Grant "Yogi" Martin. Only minutes before
the opening, both Wayne and Peter Masefield were putting the finishing touches
to the site.
To
everyone's joy, all worked as it should, and the site opening was then toasted
by a large number of New Zealand accordionists plus Faithe
Deffner in phone hook up from the USA. A speech of thanks was made by
Harley Jones to all those who had made the site possible within such a short
period of time, with particular thanks to Wayne Knights and Peter Masefield
for a great success in what appeared an impossibly short time. The celebratory
party continued until the early hours.
Weekly News in German
Since the opening, developments have continued at a great pace. One month later, the Weekly News began with news being published every Friday afternoon so that people from around the world could read the latest accordion news update at their leisure during the weekend. The Weekly News features 2 to 4 short paragraphs for each news item. The Weekly News in German began on the 28th November 1996 with the hiring of Petra Arnold, a native German and amateur accordionist.
Other Developments
Another
early development was "Other Sites", a comprehensive listing of other accordion
internet sites. This was first published on 21 November 1996, with the work
being done by three-time New Zealand Solo Accordion Champion Marie Masefield.
After having a child, Marie decided to hand over to well known accordion
entertainer Lionel Reekie and the listing of "Other
Sites" has continued to grow rapidly, now listing hundreds of accordion
related sites, and has evolved into the search-accordion.com site. In December
1996, the first Cyrillic language Publicity Site in Russian language was
published for concert artist Viacheslav Semionov
on Accordions Worldwide.
This work went on to become accordion-search.com and that allied with the very popular accordonlinks.com website give huge search capablities and free listing capablities to the accordion world.
1997
Weekly News in Four Languages
On the 10th January 97, the Weekly News began to be published in four languages:
English, German, French and Italian. Just prior to that, accordion teacher
Christine Adams joined our
team. Her work is to gather and collate the weekly news from around the
world and arrange the translation into the various languages for publication
each Friday.
Mirror German Language Site at www.akkordeon.com
The
16th January 1997 was the opening of the complete German site of Accordions
Worldwide at the address www.akkordeon.com. This has been done with great
help from Petra Arnold. This site will remain a mirror image of the English
site. This site opening was celebrated by all the staff of Accordions Worldwide
gathering at the home of Harley Jones on the
beautiful shores of Lake Pupuke, accompaniment provided by the sound of
Champagne corks popping and live accordion music provided by Lionel
Reekie.
Server moved to the USA
The decision to have our server in the USA was made on the basis that the vast bulk of accordionists live in the Northern Hemisphere. Because they would enjoy faster down load times, the Accordions Worldwide server was changed from being in New Zealand to being based in the USA.
Japanese Language added to Weekly News
As
part of the Accordions Worldwide policy of expanding the number of languages
on site, Japanese language was added to the Weekly News on 4th July 1997.
This was another first for Accordions Worldwide, learning to publish the
complicated Asian language characters on the internet.
Weekly CD Reviews
On the same date, Tania Lukic-Marx, President of the Australian
Accordion Teachers Assoc. began CD Reviews published weekly in English
and other languages depending upon translation availability.
Sponsorship
In
support of young performers, Accordions Worldwide began a policy of sponsoring
major accordion competitions and festivals by providing an internet site
for the winner. The Coupe Mondiale, Castelfidardo and South Pacific events
took up this sponsorship in 1997.
1st Anniversary Celebration
The 1st October 1997 was the 1st Anniversary of Accordions Worldwide and it was celebrated with a lunch at the Top of the Sky Tower in Auckland, the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere.
Offices in Germany and USA
During
the last two months of 1997, a Representative Office was opened in the USA
headed by Kevin Friedrich.
1997 - A Year of Spectacular Growth
Every element of Accordions Worldwide enjoyed astounding growth during 1997. The Accordion Yellow Pages database grew from 5,500 entries to over 12,000 entries during 1997. The number of advertising sites had grown several hundred percent and readership had more than doubled to over 30,000 hits per week.
1998
Well known accordionist Frédéric
Deschamps joined the Accordions Worldwide team as an adviser in February
and shortly after on the 5 March 1998 a French language only site was published
at www.accordeon.com. In March, statistics
showed that traffic had increased to 50,000 hits per week.
Russian Weekly News Added
April 24th saw the addition of the Russian Language International News as the numbers of Russians and East Europeans with internet had increased enormously.
Famous
accordion teacher Li
Cong of Shanghai in co-operation with Accordions Worldwide began the
Chinese language Accordions Worldwide site which was opened on 28 August
1998. This site has become a complete replica of the English site and also
features Chinese National News pages as well as the International Weekly
News translated into Chinese.
New Technology for the Accordion Yellow Pages
On September 25th, the new dynamic database Accordion Yellow Pages meant readers now had the ability to use many different 'search' features to make their own individual reports from this huge database of accordion information. There were now over 18,000 worldwide listings.
Search-Accordion.com
November
20th saw the addition of the first (and so far only) accordion specific
on-line search system, catering to readers looking for accordion information
published on the Internet. This was prompted by reader requests, frustrated
trying to find quality accordion information on the internet by normal search
systems. Now, webmasters of accordion sites can submit the search information
they consider most relevant to describe their site content, giving much
more accurate and higher quality search results than the normal search systems.
Japanese News suspended
The Weekly News in Japanese was suspended in November 1998 due to readership levels not attracting sponsorship. The service will be re-instated once more Japanese accordionists have internet and sponsorship can be attracted.
New Yellow Pages in German and French
To cap off 1998, the new dynamic database Accordion Yellow Pages were published in both German and French languages.
1999
AWW International Meeting
In January, the first Accordions Worldwide international meeting was held at Baylys Beach, New Zealand, attended by personnel from USA, China and New Zealand.
Celebrity Interviews
February
19th saw the first Celebrity Interview go on-line. The first interview was
conducted in London, and featured accordion artist Friedrich Lips of Moscow.
Since then 18 more Celebrity Interviews have been added, many of them in
2 languages and some are in 5 languages.
Traffic Growth
By March 1999 the number of hits on Accordions Worldwide each week had increased to over 150,000 per week, over three times the 50,000 hits a week from a year ago.
AccordionLinks.com
The "other sites" page of AWW was replaced with a new site dedicated exclusively to Accordion Links. Searchable via many different categories, this site is managed by webmaster Jerome Nijhof, and was developed from Jerome's former enormous accordion links site with the addition of the information from the AWW site.
Memorials
July
9th saw the addition of a new section of AWW paying tribute to accordionists
who had passed away. An on-line tribute, this enables viewers to pay respect
to accordionists who have passed away both recently and over the years.
Obituaries are listed for two months, with the option of expanding these
to become a permanent on-line memorial, if the families wish.
Spanish News
Because a significant number of the world's population speak Spanish, this language was added to the Weekly International News. In a very short amount of time, the popularity of this service has proven to make the Spanish language another important part of the Weekly News.
New National News Publications - Italian National News
With
the International Weekly news being the most visited part of the AWW site,
the introduction of the National News sections enabled visitors to enjoy
more in depth articles and local interest features by having an entire site
dedicated to a country or region. The first National News site was Fisarmoniae
Italian Accordion News, featuring national accordion news and events from
Italy. This was introduced on 24 September 1999.
German National News
The first publication of the Deutsche Akkordeon News, the National German News was put on-line on the 5 November 1999 with Raphael Frey of Switzerland as the Coordinator.
USA National News
The
first publication of the United States National News www.accordionusa.com
was published 1 December 1999 and is published monthly.
French National News
The first publication of the French National Accordion News, www.accordeon.com/francais was put on-line 16 December 1999 with Grégory Frénard as Coordinator.
2000
Second Accordions Worldwide International Meeting
In January, the second Accordions Worldwide International meeting was held at Baylys Beach, New Zealand, attended by personnel from USA, Italy, Austria, Germany and New Zealand.
Traffic Growth
Up
from 150,000 hits in one year earlier, weekly hits now exceeded 240,000
meaning another year of huge traffic growth.
Third AWW International Meeting
In early March representatives from New Zealand, USA and Italy convened in Vienna, Austria for several days of meetings.
Recordings for Sale
On 10 March 2000 we introduced a new section in the Yellow Pages "Recordings for Sale" where readers can search by title, performer and tracks for desired recordings.
Introduction of Linked Sites
14 April 2000 saw the introduction of Linked Sites option for clients wishing to advertize in front of the large numbers of accordion interested readers visiting Accordions Worldwide sites each week.
Eastern European News
23 June 2000 saw the addition of the new National News publication www.accordions.com/east which, based in St Petersburg, Russia, features news from Eastern Europe with coordinator Sergej Tchirkov
AWW Honored at the AAA Festival, USA
In
July 2000, Accordions Worldwide was honored at the American Accordionists
Association National Festival in Washington DC, recognizing the outstanding
contribution that the site has made to communications in the accordion world.
Harley Jones, founder of Accordions Worldwide received a standing
ovation as he accepted the plaque on behalf of Accordions Worldwide.
The AAA plaque was inscribed:
The American Accordionists' Association Honors Harley A. Jones founder of Accordions Worldwide for his vision and creativity in launching a significant and prestigious cyberspace voice for the international accordion community
accordions.com
Millennium Accordion Festival July 16, 2000 Washington DC
Faithe Deffner, President and Frank Busso and Dr. Carmelo Pino, Vice Presidents
Some Sites Moved to New Zealand Servers
With
a super high speed fibre optic cable now connecting New Zealand to the USA,
some sites were moved to New Zealand in November when there were problems
with the USA server company. The Director of the New Zealand server company
is a former member of the Air
New Zealand Accordion Orchestra. The main site of Accordions Worldwide
remains on a huge Linux server in the USA.
2001
Accordions Worldwide Meeting, First Daily Coupe Mondiale Reports A highlight of
2001 was the meeting in London. With many of the Accordions Worldwide staff
and contributers being present at the CIA Coupe Mondiale in London, attendees
decided to celerate the 5th Anniversary of www.accordions.com by meeting
prior to the CIA General Assembly.
In attendance were from left to right: Sergei Tchirkov - St. Petersburg,
Russia, Frederic Deschamps - Paris, France Faithe Deffner - NY, USA Harley
Jones - Nagigia Island, Fiji, Holda Paoletti-Kampl - Castelfidardo, Italy
Tania Lucik-Marx - Sydney, Australia Jeroen Nijhof - Stradford on Avon,
UK Tatiana Lantchakova - Auckland, New Zealand Kevin Friedrich - New York,
USA.
At the Coupe Mondiale prize giving, the NAO (National Accordion Organisation
of the UK) President Raymond Bodell presented to Accordions Worldwide, an
award recognizing their 5th birthday and the "large contribution" Accordions
Worldwide has made to the accordion.
While there, the Accordions Worldwide team published daily a competition
review and the results, which was such a success, it has continued annually
for the Coupe Mondiale. Sine then, other event organisers have invited Accordions
Worldwide staff to events to make daily news reports and publish the results. |