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Expanding Voices in the USA: The Resurgence of the Accordion Celebrated at NAMM’s Museum of Making Music

Release Date: December 13, 2018

CARLSBAD, Calif. – December 13, 2018 – Across musical genres and in top hit songs, there’s a chance you’ve heard it: the rich sonority of hundreds of reeds set in motion by the hand-powered bellows of an accordion. An instrument that had largely faded from view returns to the landscape of popular music in a variety of genres and styles and is now chronicled in a one-of-a-kind immersive experience.

Opening today, NAMM’s Museum of Making Music will present Accordions: Expanding Voices in the USA, a new exhibit designed to explore the accordion today and the myriad of ways its aficionados are using it. Leaving stereotypes in the dust, the exhibition includes recordings of the accordion across genres from classical and jazz to Norteño and punk, and stories from musicians who love the instrument.

“It is an extremely exciting experience when we start to see the resurgence of an instrument that had once faded from the spotlight, and even more exciting to see all the creative ways that musicians reincorporate and instrument some traditional and some supremely innovative,” shared Carolyn Grant, MoMM’s Executive Director. “From festivals in Sacramento to New Orleans to New York, and even onto the Billboard charts, its clear a diverse group of musicians has been reintroduced to the instrument and is wasting no time filling our musical world with new expression.”

The exhibition also features an expanded look at the insides of the accordion, and presents historical examples illustrating the development of the accordion from its early roots to its incredible popularity in school classrooms in the 1950s, to the modern form of today. Visitors will also have the chance to make their own accordion music with interactive instruments, provided by Hohner, and can learn to play instantly with the help of an easy how-to-get-started video.

Accordions: Expanding Voices in the USA will run through August 31, and will be accompanied by a variety of concert dates scheduled to demonstrate the unique beauty and versatility of these instruments, including Cory Pesaturo with special guest Count Guido Roberto Deiro on December 13, and Banda Magda on February 21, 2019.

For over 20 years, the Museum of Making Music has presented some of the rarest and most historically-significant exhibitions including Low: The Power & Beauty of Bass;

The Ukulele and You: America’s Enduring Love of the Jumping Flea; The Magic & Mystery of Slide Guitar, and more.

  • About the Museum of Making Music

    NAMM's Museum of Making Music presents the storied history of music instruments and products - from invention, to creation, to market - as its canvas to enrich people of all ages and backgrounds. They do this by offering educational immersion opportunities, exhibitions, hands-on experiences, and live performances that inform and inspire, while demonstrating how musical instruments impact popular culture and connect lives.

    A division of the NAMM Foundation, the museum opened at the NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) headquarters in March, 2000. MoMM is the only museum of the music products industry, and is the only museum worldwide that focuses on the ecosystem of music making from 1900 to present day.

    For details on the museum’s concerts, exhibits, workshops and outreach programs, please visit https://www.museumofmakingmusic.org/