Leyland Accordion Club, Leyland, Lancashire, England.

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Leyland Accordion Club - 18th August 2004

2004 Fleadh - Ireland

In August, the 2004 All-Ireland Fleadh was once again held in Clonmel, County Tipperary - a very popular venue which last hosted the event 3 years in succession in 1992, 1993 and 1994 and also in 2003. The Fleadh was a weekend of non-stop traditional entertainment, which included céilithe, concerts, sessions, street entertainment, and much more. Over 4,000 musicians took part in competitions for all traditional instruments, while more than 10,000 musicians participated. The overall attendance at the Fleadh was in excess of 250,000 people. If you are interested in visiting such a big event, then it is predicted that the next festival will be held at either Ballybunion (Co. Kerry), Ballina (Co. Mayo) or Letterkenny (Co. Donegal). The streets of the chosen town will be awash with musicians, street entertainers and people moving from one concert venue to another. I will let you know the town and date when it is announced, after all, 10,000 musicians and an audience of 250,000 people can't be wrong.

Ken Astin At Chester

In October you have another chance to see our last guest artist Ken Astin when he will be appearing at Chester Accordion Club. The admission is £3 on the door. Telephone Lyn on 0151 339 9850 for further details or directions to The Castrol Club.

November Guest

Our guest artist in November will be Romano Viazzani who was the demonstrator for the Roland FR7 accordion in July. I booked Romano as a guest artist when he came to Leyland to demonstrate the Roland FR7 accordion, I couldn't let such talent not have a full concert night at Leyland. I am sure that you are all looking forward to Romanos return to Leyland on the 17th of November.

This Wednesday

This Wednesday we have the welcome return of Walter Perrie and Bruce on accordion and Violin. You may remember the duo walking around the floor two years ago, playing a selection of French and continental pieces to a delighted audience. Bring along your friends on Wednesday for a great night of entertainment from this popular duo. Doors open at 7.30pm for an 8pm start. Turn up early if you want a good seat as I am sure this night will be popular. I look forward to seeing you there David

Fylde Folk Festival

The Fylde Folk Festival took place last week. I am normally the first to spot such things being advertised but this year I didn't see a single advert or mention of it anywhere. I am sure it was well advertised in some places but not in any magazine, newspaper or website that I have visited in the last few weeks. I would have publicised the festival in this newsletter and I would have attended it myself had I seen mention of the event. Not to be caught out again, I can report well in advance that there will be a Fylde Folk Festival in about 50 weeks time.

Jersey Accordion Festival

I wrote about the forthcoming Jersey Accordion Festival which was to be held in March 2005. This has now been posponed, not because of lack of intererest, I have to say that there was a lot of interest in attending an accordion festival in Jersey. The reason for the postponement is because, at the time the festival was planned, it didn't clash with any other accordion event, but, just before the booking forms went out to interested parties, I noticed that the Rhyl accordion event had changed it's date, it had been moved forward two weeks from it's original date which made it clash with the planned Jersey event. I contacted the organiser of the Jersey festival, Gina Branelli who decided that rather than two events being held on the same weekend, it was better to postpone the Jersey accordion festival until another more suitable date became available. As soon as another date is booked I will let you know.

Our Radio Station

I read in one of the accordion magazines a letter from someone talking about an Internet radio station that has just started broadcasts a half hour of accordion music each week. The writer wished we had something like this in England, I wrote to her to let her know that our accordion radio station has been broadcasting, not a half hour a week, but 24 hours per day for over 3 years. She was most interested to hear the news about our station and has promised to give it some publicity at the events and festivals she attends. The station at www.accordionradio.co.uk, which has seen a constant increase in it's listening figures over the years, is soon to improve, the reason is that I have just found out this week that, although I have been on the Internet for seven years, it is only now that my house can have Broadband Internet access. This means that instead of connecting to the Internet via a slow connection which I have had to do for seven years, I can update websites and put content on the radio station at a super fast speed. Something that would normally take me the best part of an hour to transfer on to the Internet will now only take about five minutes. This means that I can update the websites more often and with greater content just because of this increase in speed. There is also more chance of me updating the sites on a regular basis because my computer is not going to be tied up for ages each time I put new content on the site or the radio station. It is only this week that the range for Broadband has been extended, now you can live over 6 Km away from a broadband enabled exchange instead of the previous limit of 3 Km. If you have been refused a Broadband connection before because you were out of range then why not try again, it's most likely that you will be eligible now.

Keyboard To Accordion Conversion

Lately two organ players have started to take up the accordion, let's hope this is the start of a trend. Andrew Seddon made his debut at Leyland Accordion Club last month as you will have already seen in the report of our last concert. The other organist, who has recently taken up the accordion, is Marion Jones from Atherton. Let's hope more organists see that they have transferrable skills which with a little effort can easily be used on the accordion. These people are already good on the right hand and, with a little encouragement, should easily be able to develop left hand skills. The organ and accordion worlds are not too far apart, this can only bring them closer together.

Promenade Music

I received an email from a shop in Morecambe that I didn't know existed. I asked the shop, Promenade Music to let me know what they stocked, they replied "We only have a few accordions in stock, but can get them to order. We don’t currently have any second-hand accordions, but we do part-exchange, and may get them from time-to-time. We have a good sheet music department, and they will be able to order virtually anything in print. We are looking to increase our range of accessories." They are currently offering a discount of £350 off either the Roland FR7 or FR5. This brings the FR7 down to £2,749 and the FR5 down to £2,149. They also said that the FR7 accordion is on permenant display at their shop in Morecambe if you want to go along to try one. They sent me a bunch of leaflets which will be available on Wednesday at the club night.

Music Train

I have only just heard about The Penistone Line Music Train which started it's season on April the 19th. This is a train that features folk music being played in the carriages during each journey. The season started with The Good Egg Band playing Scottish, Irish and Yorkshire folk music. The Train Gang performed Trad Jazz on May the 17th and weekly since then they have had a mixture of brass bands, Hungarian gypsy music, Andalucian peasant songs, and Jazz. The train, which has a real ale bar on board, leaves Huddersfield at 20.17, returning from Sheffield at 21.43, arriving back at Huddersfield at 23.01. Further details of this trip can be had by ringing 01226 370338 or by visiting www.penline.demon.co.uk on the Internet. Now wouldn't it be good if we had a more local version of this event, maybe the nearby Ribble Steam Railway would be interested in such an event when they open fully for business next year.

BBC Radio Scotland

On the 19th of September on BBC Radio Scotland at 1.05pm to 3pm, The Reel Blend show features news and recordings from around the Scottish accordion clubs. Listen on SKY TV, channel 866.

Our Website

Our internet website has had 71085 visitors as at the 12th of September 2004, that’s 796 visitors since last month. The website is doing a good job of bringing new people to the club, we seem to get someone new contacting the club every week, is this the start of an increase in popularity of the accordion or just that more people are on the Internet now?

Fireworks Championsips

The National Fireworks Championships are almost upon us, they are to be held at Southport on the 8th & 9th of October 2004. Admission to the event is £3.50 per person, the fee for car parking on the beach, Esplanade or Princes Park is £5. The gates open at 6.30pm for those wanting first choice of somewhere to view the displays. The fireworks displays which normally last for 20 minutes each are at 8pm, 8.30pm and 9pm. Each display is by a UK fireworks company looking to win the title and the £3000 prize money for the best display. The fireworks, which are controlled by computers, fire in time to the music played over a huge sound system. People travel from other parts of the country to see this event which is on our doorstep so why not join them for an entertaining night out (or two). There are three teams competing on the Friday, and three on the Saturday night. If you do go to the event, take along a folding seat if you can, this will ensure that you don't have to stand for a couple of hours if the grass is wet. I would also dress warmly and take a good raincot, umbrella and a flask of coffee or tea although drinks, burgers etc are on sale at the event, they can be expensive.