World Accordion Day

[Bill Palmer]

I was fortunate enough to be invited to participate in the World Accordion Day broadcast at Shelia Lee's HAPI studio in Pasadena, Texas. This took place right after the Boni Mauricio diatonic accordion workshop. After the big jam sessions, we went out for dinner, then returned to participate in the international event. The US was given two time slots near the end of the day. Joann Cochran Summers presented her ensemble well and discussed her pedagogy program at the U of Missouri in Kansas City. Her  program was basically a continuation of the program that my father started at the University of Houston during the late 1940's through the first half of the 1960's. Dad's course of study treated the accordion as any "serious: virtuoso instrument would have been treated. When U of H went state supported, their short-sighted administrators cut the accordion out of the program, choosing instead to teach the guitar, when they didn't even have a guitar instructor. 

(rant off!)

Shelia's segment featured (as far as I know) the only diatonic accordion playing for this event. Yesenia Garcia played two short segments of  Tejano accordion, accompanied by her brothers, Luis and Pedro. It was an excellent presentation of real Texas music.