See What Our Members Are Doing
- atgaccordionistste
- Feb 24
- 5 min read
Updated: Feb 25
Murl Allen Sanders
I'm happy to report that my new band "Murl's Lucky Love Band" has been playing gigs and has just had two recording sessions yielding 11 tunes. There will be a recording available in the near future.
Jane Christison
I just discovered that my children’s song, KINDERGARTEN GRADUATION, has been used in 1,192 YouTube videos. It definitely doesn’t pay much, but it was pretty exciting to find out that people are enjoying my music!
Here’s a link to the song:
Matt Cooper
Matt Cooper (La Grande, Oregon) performed Frank Marocco’s arrangements of “Il Postino” and “Domino” at Open Mic Night at The Depot, and he played 30s swing and pop classics with “McBride and The Current” at a community coffee and music night and at two regional senior care facilities. He played a two-hour program of waltzes with an ensemble of strings, winds, and keyboard for a Valentine’s Day dance at Press Room Coffee, and on Mardi Gras he played New Orleans jazz, funk and zydeco with The Depot Street Syncopators at The Depot and hq in La Grande; this is his 15th year of performing with the Syncopators.
Matt and Chris Boris recorded duet arrangements of Astor Piazzolla’s “Oblivion” and Ernesto Nazareth’s “Dengozo” (the latter a Galla-Rini arrangement obtained from the ATG Musical Archives) using the BandLab app. Matt and Chris share these recordings at monthly Zoom meetings of Accordion Friends, USA, hosted by Rose City Accordion Club, and are preparing to play a duet program at an April Chamber Music Festival, part of the Oregon East Symphony series in Pendleton, Oregon.
Joaquín Muñoz Donoso
My last premier in Chile was in a theater for 1200 persons, and was the first piece for Solo accordion + Chamber Orchestra written by a Chilean. The piece name is "Cambalache en Santiago." Cambalache is a word that means "change something for another thing", and where the change was made was in Santiago, that is why this name. BUT!! What have we changed???I changed the arrangement of my father Franklin Muñoz Jara. He made an arrangement 15 years ago of a famous singer, Violeta Parra. The arrangement was made for 8 instruments, guitar, piano, 3 violins, double bass, cello and drums. I took it and made a "cambalache" as the first piece for chamber orchestra and accordions as a soloist.We performed on the 3rd of February in Frutillar, in the 58º Semanas Musicales, the most important festival of Classical Music in Chile, in the Teatro del Lago de Frutillar, Tronador.
My website: https://linktr.ee/Joacordion
Joyce Frye
A few years ago the Teton Music School (Jackson, WY) got a Creative Aging grant to provide 8-week classes in ukulele to seniors over 55. I took one and some folks wanted to keep playing beyond the classes, but I decided I’d rather play my accordion so I brought it in. That led to others bringing guitars, various percussion instruments, and singing and we became the Uke 55 Jam Band. The oldest member is 89. We’ve met 1-2 times a week for a few years, continue to get more gigs and occasionally even get paid!
Elena Fainshtein
My winter recital in December was a great success. I had 12 accordion and 10 piano students participate. The students' skill level and age ranged from beginner and very young to quite accomplished and older adults. One accordion student played the theme from Dr. Zhivago, which was enthusiastically applauded. The youngest piano student was only 4 1/2 years old.
Lucas Kaspar and I are getting closer to finishing the recording of our first album as Trombokordion Duo. We hope to publish the album in summer.
In early February I was invited to visit some second and fourth grade classes in an elementary school. I introduced both the button and piano accordion. The children were thrilled to see an accordion for the first time in their lives. I am hoping the school asks me back again to expose other children in other grade levels to the accordion.
I resumed the Fainshtein Accordion Ensemble recently with 14 new accordion students. We will be performing four pieces at my summer recital in June.
I am continuing as an adjunct professor of accordion at Dallas Community College, starting my fourth semester.
I continue to be busy with my own Musical Expressions accordion school, where more and more students are showing interest in the bayan (button accordion) and the piano accordion. In fact, two of my students have recently purchased a new bayan, and a third is contemplating such a purchase.
Ron Griffin and Beverley Fess
January 1, 2026 started with lots of rain in San Diego on the way to the airport. Five hours of delay and rerouting finally got Beverley and Ron to Milwaukee at midnight. Luggage didn’t connect, so missing one accordion and all clothes. We had planned a buffer day travelling at this time of the year into the Midwest. Beverley got her accordion and clothes the next day so we were ready to board the charter bus to Curtis, Michigan – on Lake Superior north of Green Bay, WI. What on earth were we doing flying on January 1 to Michigan UP you may wonder. We were wondering too – 8 inches of snow and 16 degrees!
We attended The Stas Venglevski Music Foundation event in Curtis, Michigan at their Performing Arts Center. The orchestra was comprised of youth, young adults and a few older players. All the music was composed by the orchestra youth members working with Stas. Megumi Hada was the organizational guru that puts the logistics together and keeps everything running smoothly. Beverley was concert mistress, Gail Campenella was an anchor player as well as Amanda Balcom, Megumi Hada, Dani Keiko, Ron Griffin, Kim Parker and Chilharu Ebihara (from Japan for this event).
The local Curtis community worked hard to take care of us with food and lodging. Many new friends were made and Curtis, Michigan is looking forward to seeing us in the future.
Gail Campanella
I was the “guest artist” for the Silicon Valley Accordion Society (SVAS) on December 7. Also in December, I accompanied on piano the Notre Dame Elementary School choir, as they sang Christmas songs at four local retirement homes.
I played in Stas Venglevski's recording orchestra of his accordion students' compositions that was held in Curtis, Michigan in the Upper Peninsula, January 2 - 10, 2026.
A colleague and I continue our Wednesday afternoon class for Accordion Club at Harding Elementary in Santa Barbara. The budding accordionists played in the Winter Concert, January 29. They are now preparing for the school Spring Concert.
I conduct a small ensemble of my adult accordion students. We meet two Tuesdays a month and call ourselves, the Mellow Bellows.
I played in the LA Accordionaires Pops Concert this Sunday, February 15, at the Goebel Center in Thousand Oaks, CA. This orchestra is conducted by Janet Hane.
Zach Grindle
Required of any self-respecting Christmas Eve service is an accordion player, as we all know. During the service at Redeeming Grace Church in Syracuse, IN, I got to participate in two fun trios and a duet. The sections included Once in Royal David’s City with double bass (Larry Allen), organ (Dan Grindle), and piano (me), O Holy Night with keyboard (Larry), organ (Dan), and accordion, as well as a duet of We Three Kings with accordion and trombone (Matt Thomas).
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