Sponsors
Books (Text)
eSheet (pdf file)
eTracks sound files
Sponsors
Free Services
Books (Text)
Statistics
Sponsors
Share
Link to share - cut and paste:
http://www.accordions.com/news.aspx?d=11-Sep-2015&lang=en&s=10848
http://www.accordions.com/news.aspx?d=11-Sep-2015&lang=en&s=10848
11-Sep-2015
Carrefour Mondial de l'Accordéon Festival, Quebec – Canadaby Viivi Maria Saarenkylä |
 |
 The first weekend of September was a highlight of the Canadian accordion year as the festival 'Carrefour Mondial de l'Accordéon' was held for the 27th time in Montmagny, Quebec, Canada. This year the annual festival brought together more than 70 artists from around the world and around 35,000 spectators to enjoy accordion music in all of its forms for five intense festival days. Concerts and presentations took place in three main outdoor stages around the town center as well as in a couple of concert halls and indoor stages from early mornings until late evenings. The museum of accordion attracted visitors to learn more about the history of the instrument and the main road of the town was used for a handicraft market and street musicians. The 3 hour Opening Concert on Friday 4th September was a thrilling overview of the festival's program. A dozen of the international artists were on stage showing what the festival offered, with accordion music for every taste. The mostly American-Canadian audience seemed to love everything - from traditional Québecois music to Vivaldi and everything in between - they stood up to applaud every artist. Different diatonic accordionists and traditional music was widely presented at the festival. Young Canadian one-row diatonic virtuoso Timi Turmel with his trio enjoyed huge success right from the Opening Concert. He interpreted traditional Québecois and Irish music with astonishing virtuosity and speed - all with great musicality. One of the most interesting discoveries was also a Belgian duo Didier Laloy (diatonic accordion) and Kathy Adam (cello). Connection between these two musicians having played together more than 20 years was profound and the intensity of their performance deeply captivating. Their compositions were at the same time fierce and melodic, acrobatic and original, even rock. A French-Russian duo François Heim and Alexeï Birioukov offered a delighting and fresh mix of diatonic and balalaïka. Traditional Spanish music culture was presented by duos Erica Weigand & Elias Porter from Catalonia and A Cadiera Coixa. Irish brothers Niall and Cillian Vallely played melodies from their home country with concertina and uilleann pipes. Frenchmen Roberto Santiago presented latin/Bolivian tradition with diatonic accordion and duo Étienne Grandjean (diatonic) and Soïg Siberil (guitar) offered a dulcet set of trad folk songs from Bretagne. The special events of traditional music of Québec and traditional dance of Québec featuring dozens of local American accordionists earned both a huge public interest as well. Besides the ethnic music also jazz, classical music and variété was present. Russian Roman Jbanov & his sister Anna (picture above) performed diverse classical repertoire with bayan accordion and piano, sensibly and purely. So did Italian piano accordionist Mirco Patarini (picture below) performing rather classical melodies and well-known compositions with elegance. New winds of virtuoso and variété music was presented by the young Finnish accordionist Viivi Maria Saarenkylä (picture below), the winner of Castelfidardo international accordion competition in 2014, who surprised public with a repertoire from Chick Corea to Tango Nuevo and Michael Jackson. Intriguing French/Basque duo Bilika: Didier Ithursarry (chromatic accordion) & Kristof Hiriart (vocals/percussions) drew lots of attention and interest with their unique music exploring somewhere between the traditional Basque music and free improvisation. Their performance was a deep dive into the roots with a very fresh touch. Chromatic accordion master David Venitucci together with singer-actor Annick Cisaruk offered a brand new project consisting songs of Barbara and Léo Ferré. French jazz was also played by the ensemble Quartier Libre. Overall the artistic set of the festival was so wide and diverse it is impossible to count them all. Carrefour Mondial de l'Accordéon truly succeeded in showing the magic of the accordion. |
 |