Madonna, Paul McCartney and Bon Jovi are among the popular musicians who are now adding accordions to their bands.
SPRINGFIELD - First the accordion went digital.
Now, the accordion orchestra has gone digital.
The first performance of the New England Digital Accordion Orchestra will take place April 7 at the 51st annual New England Music Festival in Newton.
Under the direction of music instructor emeritus Anselmo A. “Sam” Falcetti, the orchestra has been rehearsing at Falcetti Music here for weeks. It aims to bring to the public “the new sound of the accordion and take that sound and give it a different perspective,” he said. “This is history in the making.”
Falcetti, who, as a teenager in the 1950s in Westfield, used to offer accordion lessons door to door, conducted the Springfield Accordion Orchestra on tour in Japan, Italy, New Zealand and the United States during the 1970s and 1980s, appearing on national television broadcasts. His Westfield State University Accordion Ensemble performed twice at Carnegie Hall in New York.
“The accordion is a very happy instrument. It brings smiles to people’s faces,” he says.
Now, with the advent of the digital accordion, what appears to be several accordions producing music “sounds like a string orchestra.”
In January he formed the New England Digital Accordion Orchestra with more than 20 Roland Digital Accordion performers from throughout the region.
In 2004 Roland Music’s founder, Ikutaro Kakehashi, the creator and designer of the Roland V digital accordion, made this electronic musical breakthrough. Today, there are nine models of the Roland V available.
After adjudicating at Roland’s fifth International V Accordion Festival in Rome in 2011, Falcetti was convinced that the instrument was perfect for creating a digital accordion orchestra. He pitched the idea, and the New England Accordion Orchestra received the company’s enthusiastic backing.
Though there are various types of bands from marching bands to ethnic bands to swing bands, “this (digital accordion) band is going to do it all,” Falcetti said.
With its bellows, the digital accordion can effectively duplicate and nuance the sounds of other instruments, “so when we play…the sound is very real,” Falcetti said. “We’re able to bring the realism of these instruments” to accordion play.
Three years ago the digital accordion was upgraded to include features and options that gave rise to Falcetti’s idea for the digital accordion orchestra.
“Everyone (in the orchestra) is pretty excited about what we’re doing, and of course it’s a lot of work,” the director said.
Members range in age from teenagers to 60-somethings; some have never before played in an orchestra.
The musicians come from throughout New England, including the Western Massachusetts communities of Greenfield, Granby, Chicopee, Wilbraham, Ludlow, Pittsfield, East Longmeadow, West Springfield, Hardwick, South Hadley and Monson.
The accordion is beginning to gain popularity with celebrities like Madonna, Paul McCartney and Bon Jovi including the instrument in their bands, Falcetti said.
“It was popular in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s. Then, guitars came along and sort of pushed the accordion aside” as music began to change.
"The accordion is a new sound today,” he added, because many persons in their 20s and 30s are unfamiliar with it
The free, premier performance of the New England Digital Accordion Orchestra will be held April 7 at 4 p.m. in the grand ballroom of the Newton Marriott hotel.
Drums, percussion, guitar and vocalists will complement the orchestra.
Their set will demonstrate the Roland V accordion’s versatility, as players reproduce the sounds of instruments from saxophone to cello, while performing a Haydn classical piece, the “Godfather” theme, Duke Ellington’s “Tuxedo Junction” and the Sousa march “Stars and Stripes Forever.”