Kolubarski Region in Serbia

It looks so small...

Day 19 before Amala School.  Wait...what happened to yesterday? This educational and cultural excursion was decided upon over a year ago shortly after Orkestar Bez Ime (know here as 'we') won the McKnight Fellowship for Performing Musicians. We would have attended last year but not all six of us had the time in July free. So we waited, and waited, and waited and it seemed this dream was so far off in the future. Not any more! My suitcase has come out of the attic today and I'm starting the process of deciding exactly how much stuff I want to carry around with me all the time.

In addition to wrestling my suitcase I spent time looking at the regions of Serbia. The city of Valjevo is the seat of the Kolubarski Region which has around 200,000 people that call it home.

Wikipedia has these Ethnic group population totals posted from the census of 2002, a decade ago. This is a map of only Sumadija and Western Serbia. Kolubarski is the pink area.

http://www.lokalnirazvoj.org/sr/books/details/24

2002 Census
Kolubarski Region, only

Serbs 186,177

Roma 2,577

Others 11,806

TOTAL 200,560

Historical TLC for the ATG

Being the new president for the Accordionists and Teachers Guild, International has posed a number of unexpected challenges for me, one of which was the historical filing and storage system of this 69 year old organization.



The 2009 ATG Festival Committee, Mary Tokarski and Michele Boddicker Scheffler and myself, met at the Hilton Airport Mall of America in Bloomington (Minneapolis), Minnesota, May 21-25, 2009. We worked 14 hours a day sorting and filing to discover mementos and statistics from years past. We also set the schedule and worked with the Hilton staff regarding this year's festival 'Accordion Renaissance' presented by the ATG August 13-16 of this year, but that was the easy part of our work week.

Our ATG organizing endeavors unearthed a myriad of findings, from last year's surplus registration desk pencils to a letter from the late Anthony Galla-Rini written in 1940 regarding his views on transcribing orchestral works for accordion orchestra.



The task of sorting through all the storage boxes was an amazing experience. The three of us are proud to look forward into the future of this fine, upstanding organization. The ATG is going to have a great 'Accordion Renaissance' in August at our annual festival and convention.


left to right: Mary Tokarski (CT), Michele Boddicker Scheffler (OR), Dee Langley (MN)

ATG at Moracco Accordion Event

There's something very special about getting together with people having a good time with music and it was my priviledge to hang out with the accordionists, workshop presenters and guest artists attending the Frank Marocco Accordion Event in Mesa, Arizona. It was also sublime to have so many current, new and returning ATG members present. Here a picture of the ATG members that attended the event......

Of course I like this one of Frank and me

Air travel with an accordion

This post is for accordionists who want to travel with their instruments in addition to friends and family.

It's not too hard to travel with an accordion even with all the restrictions from the TSA. In fact it is easier now than years ago when you could board a plane with all kinds of stuff big and small.....except an accordion case which was always checked luggage. I tried everything from bracing the bases, splitting the accordion apart at the bellows and packing two containers to carry on (don't try this at home) and special hard shell cases to tears at the counter along with begging and pleading. Rarely was the instrument hand carried to the plane's luggage bays but instead went on its way tempting fate and gravity on conveyor belts and then workers brimming with apathy toward their mountains of suitcases.

In the 80s and 90s the airline companies managed to drop the instrument frequently which cracked the frame twice and broke the grill three times, once so severly that the manufacturer, Titano, had to rebuild it from the scraps - which they did expertly.

During the last eight years or so I've had no problems. My secret to free-reed flying bliss? A soft sided case. With a soft sided case the overhead bins of the most common planes fit even my concert model Titano Emperor with extended keyboard perfectly. I take the accordion on board as one of my carry-on pieces which means I can still have my laptop in a backpack. The instrument - along with the computer - never leave my care.

Even security checkpoints have been better as I always tell them in advance - after I take my shoes off - "this is an accordion". They usually want me to play a polka.