Lidia Kaminska Will Change the Way You Think About the Accordion

If you grew up in central Connecticut in the Fifties with Polish and/or Italian parents (I had both), the odds were unusually good that you would wind up playing the accordion. I've been an amateur (in the good sense, I think) for nearly 50 years, playing just for fun mostly in neighborhood jam sessions and the occasional social function. I've also made an occasional hobby of tracing the historical and ethnographic journey of the instrument. I became especially interested in this after reading Accordion Crimes by R. Annie Proulx (best known for her book The Shipping News) back in the mid-Nineties, a rich and well-researched novel (and a movie waiting to happen).

As I've sought out who's making great music with the accordion, I have met a handful of true professionals, most notably New York-area jazz MIDI accordionist Eddie Monteiro who accompanies himself on vocalise. And I've encountered (and collected) music by such terrific artists as jazzman Richard Galliano from France and new-music pioneer Maria Kalaniemi from Finland, and by other jazz, folk and new-music accordionists in dozens of countries on several continents.

Last year, here in Philadelphia, I met a young accordionist whom I believe will change the way Americans think about the accordion as a classical instrument.

Her name is Lidia Kaminska, and she is the first person to have earned a doctorate in accordion performance from an American university. I've seen her perform on both bayan (a complex, all-button Russian instrument) and bandoneon (Argentinian composer Astor Piazzolla's signature instrument). She's received well-earned attention in the press and on public radio.

If you take a few minutes to watch Lidia's performance and conversation with Hugh Sung, a faculty member at Philadelphia's incomparable Curtis Institute of Music, I think you will see what I mean. In the next few days, I'm going to post ticket information about a December 7 Astral Artists concert in Philadelphia featuring Lidia and two other terrific young musicians that Ann and I will co-sponsor. If you're open to new musical explorations, you'll want to join us there.