Performance Pictures

I just added a couple favorite pictures to my Kickstarter project NE 2 NE Accordion Expedition and thought to share them here. Pledge if you can, you get cool rewards!

Performance with The EDT Folk Orchestra

During the FUBAR Omniverse on KFAI radio, photo by Colleen Bertsch

Kickstarter and Amtrak, a dream come true?

For years I've been trying to make people feel better about having to travel with their accordion. I've said, "Oh, don't worry, just carry it on. Not a problem with a soft sided case."

I think something may have changed because I now get so sick to my stomach every time I need to take my accordion farther than a car ride away. Could it be that the airlines have damaged my concert instrument twice already and cost me a couple thousand dollars? Or maybe that I have to argue it on the plane despite my Musician's Union card in hand which should guarantee I can carry it aboard the aircraft? Or maybe it's that sick feeling at the security checkpoints as they take me aside to swab/search the outside and inside of the instrument and/or me?

Yup, I've changed my mind enough to create a Kickstarter project to raise enough funds to take Amtrak all the way from Minneapolis/St. Paul to Philadelphia to play a concert and give a work shop for the Mid-Atlantic Music Teachers Guild and American Accordion Musicological Society festival this March.

On Amtrak, my accordion will never leave my side, my meals will be made for me and I can sleep all the way east (1,200 miles) if I want to. Voila, the NE 2 NE Accordion Expedition has been created and should go live on Kickstarter in a couple of days. Hurray Amtrak!