Accordionist

Louis Kehlweiler of the Three Evangelists trilogy returns, along with his beloved pet toad, Bufo. Vauquer Clement, a young accordionist in his thirties has disappeared, believed by police forces from Nevers to Paris to have killed two women, both shockingly violent murders. But Kehlweiler is not so sure he’s guilty. With his team of experts, he must go back and look at all the facts, and see if he can clear Clement’s name before it’s too late.

This third outing by the ZZ Quartet, co-led by guitarist Ratko Zjaca and accordionist Simone Zanchini, finds the intrepid improvisers and virtuosos on their respective instruments stretching and exploring in separate live settings last year.

Richard Galliano has decided to celebrate his 30 years of career with this double CD and with the collaboration of many talented musicians and friends. "New Musette" takes inspiration from the past and from Piazzolla, Coltrane, Bill Evans, Debussy, but is played with a new sound that characterized all Galliano's career.

For once, here’s a band for which the word 'supergroup' is completely apposite. Swiss vocalist Andreas Schaerer, German pianist Michael Wollny, French accordionist Vincent Peirani and his saxophonist compatriot Emile Parisien are four of the brightest and most charismatic stars in European jazz, and they have now formed themselves into a quartet. Between them, they have so far garnered no fewer than twelve German ECHO Jazz awards, as well as just about every distinction of importance in their own countries.

Accordionist Jean-Louis Matinier has long been a creative presence on ECM recordings, heard with the groups of Anouar Brahem (on Le pas du chat noir and Le voyage de Sahar), Louis Sclavis (Dans la nuit) and François Couturier (Nostalghia, Tarkovsky Quartet), as well as in duo with Marco Ambrosini (Inventio).

"Saint-Saëns Duos for Harmonium and Piano, is performed by award-winning acclaimed classical Accordionist Miloš Milivojević and Pianist Simon Callaghan.

"Saint-Saëns Duos for Harmonium and Piano, is performed by award-winning acclaimed classical Accordionist Miloš Milivojević and Pianist Simon Callaghan. The rise in popularity of the harmonium in the second half of the nineteenth century brought with it a large repertoire of chamber music, especially in France, where the instrument had been developed and refined.

Riga-born Ksenija Sidorova is today one of the most eminent global ambassadors of the classical accordion. She has proudly borne the colours of her instrument in appearances in the world’s leading halls and with the foremost orchestras. Here she pays homage to Piazzolla in her own way: ‘Piazzolla the revolutionary, the ground-breaker, a man thinking ahead of his time … Playing this repertoire gave me a sense of artistic freedom and ignited my belief in advocacy of my instrument. For this album, I wanted to celebrate Piazzolla the innovator by pairing some his masterworks with pieces written by other composers for classical accordion, the majority of which I have premiered in recent years. Being of Russian heritage, I couldn’t help noticing the similarity between the nostalgia of the tango and that of Russian composer Sergey Voitenko’s "Revelation". French accordionist-composer Franck Angelis’s Fantasia is based on Piazzolla’s Waltz-tango, and the programme is completed by the Nocturne of Italian accordionist-composer Pietro Roffi and a piece by Sergey Akhunov’.