Dear Festival Participants,
Welcome to Kansas City and our very special celebration honoring Professor Joan Cochran Sommers. I think you will find this Festival a celebration to be remembered for a lifetime. This is very fitting since we are celebrating a woman who has dedicated a lifetime to the accordion and to the interests of our organization. This article will tell a little bit of her story, and I would like to call it “THE MAKING OF A LEADER.”
Joan Sommers has served multiple times as the president of ATG (1977-81, 1989-91, 1999-2003, 2005-2007), as well as having served as Vice-President, Treasurer and Executive Secretary. Joan founded the ATG Festival Orchestra which she has conducted since its inception. We have been so fortunate to have a director of her caliber for our annual events, always on a volunteer basis. The hours she spends selecting music, preparing music, planning seating charts and part assignments are countless! The end result of her work and preparation is always evident in our final concert. This year will be extraordinary as we add a 40-member choir, along with full percussion, to our 74-member accordion orchestra. Our final performance on Saturday evening will indeed be a Grand Finale.
Joan started playing the accordion when she was nine years old. Her accordion career began when a door-to-door salesman arrived at the Pace (Joan’s maiden name) household and asked her parents if they would like their children to have a musical education. The day that her parents said “yes” was a lucky day for all of us. Joan’s parents purchased a couple of twelve bass accordions for Joan and her brother, and they both began taking group accordion lessons. As you might imagine, Joan was always ahead of the class, practicing an extra 3-4 pieces beyond the assignment, so she could help lead the class!
It was not long before Joan started a little family ensemble with her brother, John, playing the upright bass and her sister, Carol Jean, playing electric guitar. Guess who was the leader of the group? Of course, it was Joan. She selected the music and directed the group. By age 11, Joan developed an accordion quartet at her music school assigning parts to Galla-Rini arrangements and leading the group rehearsals every week. At 12 years of age, Joan was playing accordion on a radio show on many Saturday mornings, and she was also playing solo classical programs at many country grade schools. Before Joan could drive, at age 14-15, she was teaching all day every Saturday at her music school.
At about this same time, Joan had the opportunity to meet Anthony Galla-Rini when he was performing in Kansas City. He listened to a few students, including Joan, and he told Joan if she could learn all of his newly published arrangements (at age 14), she would be welcome to attend a class in New York City with Galla-Rini where she would be the youngest member. As you might guess by now, Joan learned all the arrangements and traveled, with her mom, to New York to study with him. This was the beginning of life-long association with Anthony Galla-Rini as a mentor and teacher whenever possible.
In high school, Joan started directing groups. At an ATG Festival, Joan attended a workshop taught by a band director at Northwestern University, John Paynter. He taught the group conducting patterns and had everyone in the room waving their arms trying to learn the patterns. Joan was inspired and intrigued. This was the beginning of her illustrious conducting career! Joan went home and started conducting in front of the mirror while listening to various classical recordings. She wanted to see how she “looked,” as John Paynter had instructed. He talked about having “grace” on the stage without wiggling around. I think we can all testify to the fact that Joan looks terrific on the stage 75 years later, with no wiggling, and in complete command of her orchestra!
Let’s fast forward to age 21. Joan went to Brighton, England to compete at the Coupe Mondiale. There, she was exposed to the British College of Accordionists’ Syllabus and Syllabus Examinations. Joan brought that concept back to the United States. Her school, the Accordion Institute of America, began using a Syllabus and offering Syllabus Examinations to their students. Anthony Galla-Rini was brought in to grade all the students taking Syllabus Examinations. Does this sound familiar? Joan recognized the great future of the accordion and was inspired to learn the repertoire from Europe and to find a way to have the accordion be as well-received and respected in the United States as it was in Europe. That remains a goal and vision for the ATG.
Joan’s next accomplishment was to initiate an accordion program at the Kansas City Conservatory of Music in 1961. In the Fall of 1961, the Conservatory began offering college credit to accordionists. The following year, the Kansas City Conservatory became part of the University of Kansas City, and ultimately the University of Missouri system. In short order, Joan became the chair of the accordion department at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music. This is where her worldwide recognition and legacy began!
Joan was teaching about 100 students per week, many in classes. She had a beginning accordion band of 25-30 students that met every Wednesday evening at the Conservatory, and the more advanced Accordion Orchestra met every Thursday evening. To this day, even 24 years after her retirement, Joan has a dedicated space at the conservatory where the UMKC Community Accordion Ensemble rehearses every Thursday night! Joan’s orchestra was well respected by all musicians at the Conservatory, and her work was duly noted and on par (or above par) with all the other instrumental programs offered at the Conservatory. Like all other instrumentalists, accordion students could earn college credit that was applied to any Baccalaureate program. As time progressed, and classes were added, students could earn a Bachelor of Music in accordion performance at the Conservatory, and ultimately a Masters Degree and Doctorate in Music using the accordion as their chosen instrument.
Professor Sommers developed an entire curriculum that included classes in accordion repertoire, accordion pedagogy, accordion history, arranging, ensemble work, and orchestra work. Accordion students were required to study German because so much repertoire was being published in Germany. Conducting and Music Theory were also required classes for the degree program. Students could earn 3 or 4 hours of credit for private accordion study and were required to play a jury (performance before three Conservatory teachers for a grade) at the end of each semester. The accordion department was vibrant and a part of everyday life at the conservatory, alongside all other instrumental programs. This attracted students from many different countries, including China, Norway, Finland, Poland, New Zealand and Canada.
Through the years, the UMKC Accordion Orchestra won many National awards and was renowned and revered in Kansas City and beyond. They were National Champions beginning in 1960 and won more Virtuoso Championships than any other group in the United States. The UMKC Accordionaires (a smaller group than the orchestra) was selected to present shows on USO tours taking them to Greenland, Newfoundland, Labrador, Germany, Korea, Japan, Okinawa, Taiwan, the Philippines, Guam and the Azore Islands. Joan’s youngest sister, Nancy, also studied accordion with Joan at the Conservatory and was a member of the USO tours to Germany and the Pacific.
Professor Sommers has conducted orchestras all over the world and founded the World Accordion Orchestra in 2007 which gave its first performance in Washington, D.C. She again conducted the World Accordion Orchestra, between 2008 and 2017, in Glasgow, Scotland; Auckland, New Zealand; Kaunas, Lithuania; Osimo, Italy; Spoleto, Italy; Shanghai, China; Varazdin, Croatia and Shenzen, China. She has been invited as a guest conductor numerous times at the Las Vegas Accordion Convention, the American Accordionists Association and many other accordion organizations throughout the United States.
For 12 years, Joan Sommers served as Chair of the Music Committee for the World Accordion organization, the Confédération Internationale des Accordéonistes (CIA). She has served as the president of the jury for the prestigious Coupe Mondiale (World Competition), sponsored by the CIA, numerous times and as recently as 2022. She was awarded the CIA Merit Award in Weisbaden, Germany in 1995, and her UMKC Orchestra was honored with the same award in London in 2001. In 2014, the CIA conferred Honorary Membership upon Joan for her vast accomplishments and contributions.
Joan retired from the University of Missouri-Kansas City in the year 2000 and was granted the status of Professor Emerita upon her retirement. This title is only given to a select few who have distinguished themselves in the world of academia and retired from a position of distinction. Joan Sommers founded the accordion department at the University, attracted students from all over the world, and produced many United States Champions who represented the United States at the Coupe Mondiale (including her daughter, Cathy Sommers Tiritoglu, who was the ATG Champion and US representative in 1999 in Trossingen, Germany). She led an accordion orchestra that won many titles, and finished her career in academia as an Assistant Dean at the UMKC Conservatory of Music. It is hard to imagine a more distinguished and exemplary career!
The ATG is immensely proud and pleased to honor Joan Cochran Sommers at our Festival this year celebrating her 90th year! We are so grateful for all you have done for the accordion world at large and for the Accordionists & Teachers Guild, International. Joan, thank you for being you!
Enjoy this glorious Festival and Joan’s hometown, Kansas City. You will not want to miss one moment of this historic event. I look forward to rehearsing with you this week under the baton of Joan Cochran Sommers!
Warmly,
Mary Ann
Mary Ann Covone
President, Accordionists & Teachers Guild, International
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