Leyland Accordion Club, Leyland, Lancashire, England.

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Leyland Accordion Club - 15th June 2005

Alexander Korbakov DVD

Russian accordionist Alexander Korbakov, from St Petersburg, has released a new DVD, titled ‘Prelude’. This is a solo acoustic recording of Alexander which was filmed in Kendal Parish Church in theLake District. The pieces performed on the DVD are: Luci e Ombre (Pizzigoni), Prelude and Fugue (JS Bach), Rondo A La Turka (Mozart), Valse Op.64 no 2 (Chopin), Trisch-Trasch Polka (Strauss), Ave Maria (Cacchini), Winter (Vivaldi), Sabre Dance (Khachaturian), Spring Dance (Diniku-Shalaev), The Steppe is all Around (V. Belov), Saratov Stradania (traditional), Letka-enka (Lahtinen), Fiddle-faddle (Leroy Anderson) and Kalinka (traditional). If you would like to purchase a copy of the DVD then email Jean Sherman at jean@shearmans.plus.com.

Advertising

I decided to widen our horizons with some paid for advertising in a publication called Artslive that goes out to 15,000 local people via libraries, council offices, local groups etc. I hope this brings us some new members, but even if it didn't bring in more people, at the very least it will raise our public profile which could have other longer term benefits. I aim to run the adverts in each issue of Artslive for the forthcoming 6 to12 months to see what response we get to a quarter page promoting the club, the website and our radio station.

This Wednesday

Our concert this Wednesday features Tony Marchell who has not played at Leyland Accordion Club since May 2000 when we were at our previous venue of The Highfield. The last time Tony played for us his repertoire included pieces as diverse as The Wanderer, Red Red Robin, Wipeout, Hill Billy Rock, Singing The Blues, Exodus, Irish Washer Woman, Telstar and Cavatina. As you can see, this promises to be a night of musical variety from Tony. Please tell your family and friends about our concerts and hopefully persuade one or two of them to come along and enjoy what will be another great night of entertainment with Tony Marchell, and of course a selection of our own local players to start the evening. The doors open at 7.30pm, for an 8pm start. Remember to turn up early if you want a good seat. I'm looking forward to this night as usual and I will once again see you there. David Batty

Our 7th Annual Picnic Concert

Our Annual Picnic Concert was held on Sunday the 3rd of July 2005 at Hollins Farm, Hollins Lane, Leyland. It was a lovely day on Saturday as we checked the stage and tested the field until about half past midnight. After checking that the field worked ok, we knew we only had to rely on the weather the following day. The next day was lovely and warm as I set up the sound system, and Harold made sure we had an electricity supply and also made sure signs were up to direct the crowds in to the field. People started arriving from 12 noon onwards, but some people had stayed in their caravans overnight so were already parked around the edge of the field. We had around 40 cars at the picnic with most cars containing two or more people, that meant that there were around 80 to 90 in attendance. The picnic followed it's usual format of me taking a back seat to let players take to the stage as and when they felt like it, this always works quite nicely and I rarely have to prompt anyone to go and fill an empty stage as there is always a constant stream of willing volunteers waiting for their go. The photograph on the right of three young ladies enjoying the sun, food and entertainment neatly sums up the day. The players provided constant entertainment for over six hours during which time we made many new friends, met some old ones and generally had a nice relaxing time. Thanks must go to Harold for the use of his field and for all the work that goes on behind the scenes with the grass cutting, setting up of the stage, signs etc. We finally went home about 7pm to go and treat our sunburn. I did notice as I was about to leave, I closed the curtain on the stage and at that moment the rain started, it had waited until we had finished before a shower arrived. The next day was a stormy windy day, which meant we had been very lucky once again this year. Lets hope our 8th Picnic goes as well as this year's event.

Guinness Book Of Records

A total of 644 Accordionists set a new world record, verified by the Guinness Book of Records, at the Kimberley International Old Time Accordion Championships in America. The 644 accordionists included Bernadette Conlon from Australia, our own Gary Blair from Scotland, Igor Zavadsky from the Ukraine, Janet Todd from the USA and Serge Duchesne from Canada. The 644 accordionists played together to a sell out audience in the Kimberley Civic Centre for 29 minutes and 30 seconds to topple the previous world record held by the Stedeker Dansers. The old record consisted of 566 musicians playing the accordion for 22 minutes, during the International Folklore Festival in Diepenheim, The Netherlands, on June 1st 2000. In an interview with Anders Johnson, Jeany Irvin said: "I think a lot of the people who came last year, came this year and brought friends with them, and brought more accordions with them, so we did not have the problem of running out of accordions. Last year we had enough people, and not enough accordions".

Question?
How do you confuse an accordionist?

Our Website

Our internet website has had 82001 vistors as at 17th of July 2005, that's 1069 visitors to the main page of our website since last month. I was visitor 82001 when I visited the site to get the count on Sunday I had just missed being visitor 82000 by possibly a few minutes. Now I have to wait for 83000 to come around, although it sounds a long wait, fortunately that will only be about a month away due to the high number of visitors we get to the site. The site has brought us some new club members again this month, two of them came to the picnic for the first time. I was pleased to see over 1000 visitors on the site this month because traditionally summer is a quiet time for visitor numbers as people take to their gardens instead of using their computers. I think the rise in the number of people getting on the Internet helps, when I started the club website back in 1997 people were saying "The Inter...What?" How that seems so long ago now.....

Accordion Flexy Bus

I thought you might like to see this flexible bus where they have painted an accordion across the pleats in the middle so the bellows seem to operate as the bus goes round corners. It is being used to promote The North Sea Jazz Festival in Holland. I think the flexible trams in Manchester would benefit from such a paint scheme.

Lisa Lee Leslie

I was asked at our picnic who we have booked for November so I thought I would let everybody know that I have booked Lisa Lee Leslie for our November concert night. I booked her after hearing her at the Eastbourne Accordion Festival when John Romero asked if I was interested in her, he then announced it to the festival audience that she had been booked for Leyland. I was going to have her playing for us in September but November worked out best for Lisa. For those who don't know her, Lisa Lee Leslie is John Leslie's daughter. She is an excellent player and a guest artist worth looking forward to seeing.

Festivals Moving to Blackpool?

Rumours have come to my attention that both Bridlington and Rhyl festivals are combining and moving to Blackpool. At the time of writing this newsletter I don't have any information to confirm or deny the rumours and a quick search of the organisers websites revealed no information on any bookings for 2006 at any of the above mentioned resorts. I tried to make a couple of telephone calls to the organisers to find the information but there was no answer and this newsletter was due to go to press. I will let you know the outcome of this investigation in the next newsletter.

Cambridge Folk Festival

The Mark Radcliffe Show on BBC Radio Two (Sky Channel 852) is being broadcast live from the Cambridge Folk Festival on Thursday the 28th of July 2005 from 22:30 to Midnight. A similar show is being broadcast on the 29th of July from 17.05 to 19.00 and also on the 30th of July from 21.30 to 22.30. Then finally on the 3rd of August the Mike Harding programme on the same radio station is broadcasting edited highlights of the festival after the event.