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http://www.accordions.com/news.aspx?d=25-Nov-2011&lang=ru&s=5006
http://www.accordions.com/news.aspx?d=25-Nov-2011&lang=ru&s=5006
25-Nov-2011
by Rob Howard
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 The annual Autumn Accordion Festival at Caister, Norfolk, was first held in 1986 by Malcolm Gee. In February 1997 Malcolm Gee died unexpectedly, and the festival’s future was suddenly thrown into doubt. Fortunately, Caister was rescued when Robert and Loreta Rolston took over as organizers, and the report below by Gary Blair appeared in the Accordions Worldwide news for November 28th 1997. The present day version of this festival took place last week at Seacroft, just two miles from its original home at Caister, organized by Heather Smith. CAISTER ACCORDION FESTIVAL - ENGLAND Contributed by Gary Blair The Caister Accordion Festival was held from November 13th to 16th and organised by the Accordion Times & News, England. The Opening Night concert (Thursday 13th) was an accordion club type night with the accordionists performing if they so wished. Pino di Modugno from Italy was asked to play as a taster for Saturday night. He was absolutely dynamite!!! His programme started off with ‘Dizzy Fingers’ (at a tempo I would have thought impossible!) followed by a couple of other well known tunes. Friday's concert started with The Weaver Valley Band, followed by a great duo called Amarylis and Gary Blair's band. After an Interval, we were privileged to hear Julie Best and Ron Hodgson, followed by Pat Gray from Aberdeen playing a variety of music. Then the Star of Friday's concert, Magnus Johnnsson (only 19 years old and won the Frosini Grand Prix which had 6,000 competitors!!) performed. His programme included a lot of Frosini's works, and he played brilliantly. Saturday's concert was also superb with the Ronmar Accordion Orchestra, Harry Hussey and his brilliant Jazz Band, and a solo spot from Julie Best. Then it was the star of the show again, Pino di Modugno who was now playing on MIDI accordion. He started off with a Strauss medley then played 'Uridium’,' by Astor Piazzola (this was unbelievable!). He then totally blew my mind by performing ‘Bumble Bee Boogie’ as good as anyone I have heard. My Band then finished off with a ceilidh and the highlight for me was playing 'The Flying Scotsman' with TWO drummers! |