Everyone was there, my friend Aaron Watson, Karl and Martin Hergt, Stan, Ron, Sanna, Patty, Mary, Monica, Carol, little Arland, Dr. Dave...etc... I finally got to meet Roland Grittani and George -a very talented Romanian accordionist.
There was an Open Stage of having accordionists perform all day Saturday and Sunday at the festival, several tents set up outside with accordions for sale by Tempo Trend, and ROLAND's synthy accordions, the VAC's had a tent with old records and vintage sheet music, and then myself with my booth of "Squeeze Me - Accordion Chic Apparel" wears available.
My friend and bandmate Chris and I performed a 30 minute set on the Open Stage on Saturday afternoon. Here are a couple videos of that set (A big THANK YOU to my Mom for filming these):
Aside from all these features, there were three amazing performers, Patricia Bartell, Ivan Preanicov, and Andy Mirkovich.
Both Patricia and Andy were holding private accordion lessons and group workshops over the Saturday and Sunday as well. I have the opportunity to take a private lesson and be a part of a group workshop with Andy Mirkovich -who is such a lovely man.
A great showman, entertainer, and musician. He came to the festival up from Seattle WA, where he performs as a pianist as well as an accordionist. He played up in the Seattle Space Needle, which was originally a 6 week contract that went on for 11 years :)
He played "Moscow Nights" into "Two Guitars" for me during his last performance, which was made up of requests from the audience.
I didn't stay for the evening concert, which happened on the Saturday night, so I didn't see the three of them each perform their 45 minute sets. Ivan is speedy, technically dizzying, and did I mention very fast? I admit I envy the music programs that Russia has for it's schools, Ivan is definitely a successful representation of what the Russian Conservatory of Music can offer.
Unfortunatley I never saw Patricia perform, but am glad I saw Andy put on his 'requests' show and see Ivan do his "Russian Cowboy" song again, it must be his favourite.
A pleasant and lovely weekend, sold lots of t-shirts, heard "Roll out the barrel" way too many times, and made many new friends :)
