Accordion World Cup comes to Victoria, BC, Canada!

That’s the Coupe Mondiale of the Confédération Internationale des Accordéonistes happening in less than two weeks in Victoria, which only about half-a-day’s travel from Vancouver!

Yes, that’s right, the CIA has their own accordion festival.  They chose the acronym first too, back in 1935 when that other agency wasn’t even a glimmer in William Donovan‘s eye.

I hope to get over to Victoria for some of the events.  They have a parade on Sunday the 18th, and if anybody wants to take our giant accordion puppet, it loves a parade.  (See photo at right of happy parade puppet waiting for you to take it to Victoria.  Happy parader not included.)

Besides the parade, the Coupe has a week of accordion competitions punctuated by concerts and a few other happenings.  Here’s some events I hope to attend:

JAZZ MASTERS: featuring Ludovic Beier, Renzo Ruggieri and Cory Pesaturo (who I hope to finally meet in person).

Wed. Aug. 21, 8pm, Alix Goolden HallThurs.

Accordion History Lecture/Demo with Helmi Strahl Harrington

[People who might not ask me to shut up about accordion history!]
Aug. 22, 5:30-6:30pm  (free entrance) Victoria Conservatory of Music

International Trade Show, with a free concert

[if only I had a book to sell, maybe next time].
Sat. Aug 24, 1-4 PM at Centennial Square.

Early in the week they’re also having the Victoria International Accordion Orchestra Competition, and I certainly have never had the chance to hear a gathering of accordion orchestras.  That, the Roland synthesizer V-Accordion competition, and the other concerts and battles (insert your favourite non-violent musical metaphor here) will certainly be unlike anything seen in these parts.  It’s really like having the high-level international musical world dropped down among us for a week.  Pretty cool.

Can I just say, get your tickets now so you can listen to music in this place:

The venue for the Coupe Mondiale Competitions – the ‘Alix Goolden Performance Hall’

I’ve never been to a musical competition like this before, so I don’t know how it works exactly.  The Coupe Competition Schedule details how the days are broken up into categories for various levels of players.  Then on Friday the 23rd they have a final round.  I don’t know who does the judging or how they score people, but I imagine this is when the gloves come off and the hockey metaphors come out, since we’re in Canada.

  

 

 

 

2013 Coupe Mondiale Organizer: Aleksandar Milojevic
(2013 CIA Honorary Vice President and President of the BC Accordion Society) and his organizing team.

Contact E-mail: coupe2013@gmail.com

BC ACCORDION SOCIETY

898 Brett Ave, Victoria BC,V8X2Z6, Canada

tel: (1) 250 475 3525

e-mail: contact@bcaccordion.ca

[Note for travellers, it takes about half of a day for most folks to travel to Victoria from Vancouver or Seattle unless you take a sea-plane, which would be fun.  Otherwise, we could invite the whole crew over to the radio station on Wednesday night to be on the program.  We may be able to rig up something live….  I’m getting my co-host Rowan to cover for me here so I hope to see you all in Victoria!]