Accordion Noir is the Co-Op Radio show featuring… what else?  Accordion music!
Todd Wong is the featured guest on January 9th, 9:30-10:30pm.  CFRO: Co-Op Radio 102.7 FM. 

I will play some solo accordion pieces + select some of my favorite tunes featuring accordion by other artists.  Maybe the Bruce Springsteen acoustic version of Fire, or the new Emmylou Harris album “All I Intended to Be” featuring a song co-written with Canadians Kate & Anna McGarrigle titled “Sailing Roudn the Room.”

Quartetto Gelato cd's are favorites of mine that often accompany road trips.  Maybe some tangos or classical music?  I have a Joe Marcerollo cd featuring the contemporary Alexina Louie composition Earth Cycles. Alexina is the most accomplished Chinese-Canadian composer, appointed as an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2005.

I performed last year on Accordion Noir – just before the 2008 Gung Haggis Fat Choy dinner.  My bagpiper friend Joe McDonald also brought along his accordion, and we jammed along to our recorded rap version of “Address to a Haggis”

Maybe I will also play some of the singalong songs that we regularly perform for the Gung Haggis dinner (January 25) and the World Poetry Gung Haggis Poetry night at the Vancouver Public Library (January 26).  Maybe a version of Scotland the Brave, Loch Lomand, and When Asian Eyes Are Smiling.

How long have I been playing?  Since I was in grade 5 Elementary School, when I was 11 years old. 

I started out on the Palmer-Hughes accordion course, and was soon placed on the Music Festival competition circuit including the Coquitlam and Vancouver Kiwanis Music Festivals.  Later on as a late teen, I went down to Seattle to compete in the North West Accordion Teachers' Association Festival, where I once placed 2nd in the King Division by performing the 17 page Manhattan Concerto by memory.

So…. my repertoire is basically classical music – everything from Bach's Toccata in D minor, Strauss Waltzes, to Gerswin's Rhapsody in Blue.  The past few years has found me buying music books with Celtic and Latin songs, as well as Beatles music.

Hey, I just found my cd copy of Jou Tou which features my friends from Silk Road Music Ensemble Qiu Xia He and Andre Thibault.  Amy Stephens is playing accordion on this album.