Next: January 2024, A farewell to Stefano Mengascini (1961–2023)

Accordion Craft Academy
Castelfidardo, Italy

How do you learn to repair accordions? Like any other trade, the apprentice studies with a master. Don't settle for a technician who learned everything he knows from Youtube videos!

Once upon a time, you could have done this by working at your local music store, looking over the shoulder of your town's master repairman. But you can count on your fingers the number of cities in North America where there's still an accordion shop big enough to keep two repairmen busy.

The alternative is traveling to where the accordions are made, and studying with the people who build them. The accordion capital of the world is in Castelfidardo, on the east coast of Italy just south of the old port city of Ancona. Castelfidardo is the home of the Accordion Craft Academy sponsored by Victoria Accordions, as well as a couple dozen other factories, an accordion museum, and the World's Largest Accordion sidedhow attraction.

I spent two weeks at the Accordion Craft Academy in November 2023, learning under the instructor's watchful eye how best to disassemble and reassemble the keyboard, bass machine, reed blocks, and register switches; how to pour wax to secure the reeds in place; how to test the pitch of the reeds and tune them as needed.

I also got to sightsee a bit, visiting Venice and Assisi, soaking in an all-natural hot spring, seeing the world's largest artificial waterfall, the Cascata delle Marmore, and enjoying riding Italy's fast and efficient rail system and wishing we had the same in the United States.