Leavenworth International Accordion Celebration, 2025 edition

Jakob Bean, a C-system player from the Seattle area

I made my fifth annual trip over to Leavenworth, WA, situated on the east slope of the Alp-like Cascades, this past June to enjoy entertainment and attend classes at the Leavenworth International Accordion Celebration.

Alpenfolk performing at the Festhalle

Most of the attendees are piano accordionists playing 20th century American music, with a small but dedicated group of steirische Harmonika players reinforcing Leavenworth's Bavarian mood. They do allow CBA players too, and Jakob Bean has been taking a larger role in organizing the festival. The festival has a rosy future ahead of it and looks likely to outlive its founders.

The Accordion Celebration is four events rolled into one. There are evening concerts Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night; competitions for those who want to measure their skill against their fellow performers (with subsidies to help young players attend and compete); free live outdoor music during the daytime, all day every day, new players every 15 minutes; and a half dozen workshops you can attend. The workshops are taught by the concert headliners and by leading local players.

The Ben Thomas Trio playing tango music

This year my favorite workshop was on how to make tango music sound authentic and exciting, led by Ben Thomas; I learned lots of things about tempo and articulation that had eluded me after years of trying to learn tango style from books and sheet music. He shared a link to the Argentinian group Tango Sin Fin that produces instructional material and sheet music in both Spanish and English. Give it a look if you enjoy tango as much as I do.

My favorite concert program was Alpenfolk, a husband and wife duo who combine sterische Harmonika with hammered dulcimer (and occasionally string bass, guitar, and good old fashioned spoons for percussion.) It's surprisingly hard to get these timbres to blend, and to not completely bury the dulcimer sound, but they did an amazing job. I'd love to see them again.

The Leavenworth Alphorn club in action

Leavenworth is also the home of a large and very active alphorn club (they have a big Alphorn festival in May each year that draws dozens of players from all over the world.) They come out and entertain the crowds at the Gazebo late each afternoon, between the free outdoor accordion music and the indoor evening concerts. This year we got to hear no less than 8 of them at once, playing in 4-part harmony.

More pictures from Leavenworth:

The blur of Cory Pflug-Tilton's flying dulcimer hammers

Front Street in scenic pseudo-Bavarian Leavenworth

Leavenworth open air artisan's market

The Sleeping Lady, a mountain just outside town Can you see her profile?

The skyline after an evening concert