These past two days of Victoria BC's Accordion Festival "Accordions by the Sea" had been quite the experience for me.I had a spot in the festival selling my "Squeeze Me Apparel", which went over quite well with the public. What was the best part was seeing many accordion friends I already knew, and making new ones.
I also met a lot of older gentlemen, and it is uncommon to be a 25 year-old female accordion player, so I did get attention...kinda funny
This is myself with Robert "Bob" DeCamillis. My "Camillo" Guerrini Accordion is named after him. The Guerrini accordions were exclusively handcrafted the Canadian Accordion Institute Ltd, back in the 1960's or so. Bob was a distributor and when ordering these accordions in from Italy had it customed to have his name "Camillo" on them.Bob bought lots of my wears, but mainly wanted to buy my accordion from me...but I couldn't part with it.
This is George from Sugarland, Texas.
He's rad.
He's Mario Pedone's right-hand man, and was my neighbour during my time at the festival.
This is Karl Hergt (Accordion Repairman extraordinaire) and myself. Karl is the co-owner of Tempo Trend, and is the silliest German man I've met.
The Story Dolls had a fun time at the festival as well. They entertained the crowds for 15 minutes, and made many friends as well.
Hildegärd meets Irv Lang and his lovely wife.
This Accordionista is 89 years-young. I didn't catch her name, but she was very sharp and told me I was a "good-lookin' woman".
A big jam session happened at the end of the festival. It felt like we were going to blast the Edelweiss Club off the ground.
This is myself with Mario Pedone, total accordion ninja, and *kinda* a big deal. He was very inspiring, encouraging, informative, and so interesting to talk to.
He and I played a couple of songs together in the parking lot, which was so intimidating at first, but he's very lovely and sweet about playing. He told me I played very well, and we had a good talk about how I just need to work on my technqiue, which I know. He was encouraging and is going to send me several workbooks to improve technique. He spoke about how no accordionist is better than the other, and that we're important to the world, as is all music.
In the words of my friend Justine "He's like your Miyagi."
He's rad.
He's Mario Pedone's right-hand man, and was my neighbour during my time at the festival.
This is Karl Hergt (Accordion Repairman extraordinaire) and myself. Karl is the co-owner of Tempo Trend, and is the silliest German man I've met.
The Story Dolls had a fun time at the festival as well. They entertained the crowds for 15 minutes, and made many friends as well.
Hildegärd in all her glory
Hildegärd meets Irv Lang and his lovely wife.
This Accordionista is 89 years-young. I didn't catch her name, but she was very sharp and told me I was a "good-lookin' woman".
A big jam session happened at the end of the festival. It felt like we were going to blast the Edelweiss Club off the ground.
This is myself with Mario Pedone, total accordion ninja, and *kinda* a big deal. He was very inspiring, encouraging, informative, and so interesting to talk to.He and I played a couple of songs together in the parking lot, which was so intimidating at first, but he's very lovely and sweet about playing. He told me I played very well, and we had a good talk about how I just need to work on my technqiue, which I know. He was encouraging and is going to send me several workbooks to improve technique. He spoke about how no accordionist is better than the other, and that we're important to the world, as is all music.
In the words of my friend Justine "He's like your Miyagi."
