Qualifications: ATDNZ, LTCL (piano), FIRMT
In 1996, Harley Jones started the Accordions
Worldwide group of internet sites.
These include:
www.accordions.com www.akkordeon.com www.accordeon.com
the largest and most visited accordion internet sites in the world.
These sites provide advertising banners for companies and artists
with a very large readership attacted by such accordion community
services as: Weekly News in 8 languages, CD Reviews, Celebrity Interviews,
Articles, major event reports etc.
Additional sites include:
Accordion
Yellow Pages Search-Accordion AccordionLinks.com largest accordion links site in the world,
MusicForAccordion.com a site which sells eSheet music (sent by email to the client), CD's
for world known artists, music catalogs for publishers in different
parts of the world.
Harley Jones has received several
international
awards for his accordion internet activities:
2000 American Accordionist's Association - USA The plaque had the
inscription -
“The American Accordionists Association honours Harley A Jones founder of
Accordions Worldwide for his vision and creativity in launching a significant and
prestigious cyber space voice for the international accordion community
accordions.com”
2001 National Accordion Organisation of the United Kingdom (NAO)
- UK presented at the 2001 Coupe Mondiale.
Picture above. 2006 Castelfidardo Plate and Award presented by Paolo Picchio at the 2006 Castelfidardo Festival prizegiving. This was also the Accordions Worldwide 10th Anniversary.
July 2007, the Sata-Häme Soi Accordion Festival presented a beautiful plaque to
Accordions Worldwide "in recognition of the global work Accordions Worldwide is doing in the promotion of
the accordion, and Finnish accordion activities."
2007 Confédération Internationale des Accordéonistes
(CIA) Merit Award presented by President Kevin Friedrich (left) and Secretary General Kimmo Mattila.
2007 August, the Accordions Worldwide website was 'Recommended by
Beesker as the world's best website on Accordions'.
2018 Selected as a member of the ATG International Accordion Hall of Fame at the ATG Festival in Lisle, IL.
On 13th January 1998, Harley Jones was elected a "Fellow of the
Institute" by the Institute of Registered Music Teachers of New
Zealand. Harley flew to Dunedin (South Island, New Zealand) to receive
this prestigious award. This honour was presented to him in recognition
of his distinguished services to the New Zealand teaching profession.
Official Citation
Harley Jones is a virtuoso concert piano accordionist. He has appeared on
T.V. and National Radio in New Zealand many times, and has performed extensively
in the USA, Canada, England, Germany, Holland, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Turkey,
Hong Kong, Singapore and China as well as his home country of New Zealand.
Harley
was soloist with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra on a C.D. of
symphony orchestra works composed by
Gary Daverne, recorded in 1992 and now
released internationally by EMI. "Rhapsody for Accordion and Orchestra"
was written by New Zealand composer
Gary
Daverne especially for Harley Jones.
He premiered this work
in New Zealand with the
Auckland
Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the composer (December 1987).
He performed "Rhapsody" at the International Piano Accordion Competition
and Festival in New York (August 1988) and at the Prize Giving of
the 1990
Coupe Mondiale held in Germany in 1990.
Harley has performed this
work over 120 times worldwide, usually with composer
Gary Daverne as the conductor, including
Europe, North America, Australasia, China and Turkey.
Harley Jones Recordings:
Harley Jones has
performed on a number of CD's - Listen to the MP3 sound samples:
Accordion
Concert Music - solo, duet, group and concerto music composed for accordion
by Gary Daverne, performed with accordionists.
Youth
of Auckland - concerto with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra composed by
Gary Daverne.
On Tour - Air New Zealand Accordion Orchestra. Concerto with accordion orchestra.
Harmonika-Spielring
Böblingen E.V. - concerto with accordion solo recorded by Radio Stuttgart
and also performed at the 1990 Coupe Mondiale Prize Giving concert.
Harley Jones has been involved with the
Confederation
Internationale des Accordeonistes (CIA) for many years, having
been an adjudicator on a number of ocassions and Chairman of the
Coupe Mondiale Adjudicators in 1976 in Washington.
He has served
on the Music Committee for the CIA for about 16 years (the committee which selects the Coupe Mondiale jury) and is currently
the Public Relations Officer for the CIA and has been a CIA Executive member for some 16 years.
Harley was born in Auckland, New Zealand in 1953. His qualifications include
LTCL piano, ATDNZ accordion and AIRMT, later awarded FIRMT.
Winner of the
New Zealand Accordion Championship at 14
years of age he represented New Zealand at 16 years of age at the Coupe Mondiale
International Accordion Solo Competition held in New York in 1969.
His
performance repertoire includes novelty and musette pieces, serious original compositions
and classical transcriptions. With his brother
Maurice
Jones, he has recorded an L.P. record in 1975 and been featured soloist on various
other accordion L.P. records and CD's.
