Contributed by Amber Masefield

Day 3, Wednesday 25 July 2024

Throughout the festival, there were many media reporters who came to take pictures, interviews and film of the event.

On Thursday, Dr. Michael Bridge, Grayson Masefield and the honoree Joan Cochran Sommers were interviewed in a live cross for the morning news.

Click pictures below to see full size.

Competitions started for the day with the ensemble and orchestral classes, featuring Acclectica Intermediates, Elena Fainshtein Ensemble, Jarosh Chamber Ensemble, the Chicagoland Accordion Academy and the Jarosh Ensemble. The morning competitions finished with the 32 and under solo virtuoso and virtuoso entertainment categories.

A workshop on Accordion Basics and Improvisation Basics was held by Nikolay Bine, discussing the great freedom that improvisation gives to every musician.

The first rehearsal of the ATG Festival Orchestra started with the standard chaos of 74 accordionists trying to find where they were seated, but as the conductor raised her baton, everything fell into place. Joan Cochran Sommers had selected a challenging repertoire of six pieces, including two commissioned for the occasion.

Introduced by Liz Finch, the next workshop was hosted by Grayson Masefield (New Zealand) on how to structure practice sessions so issues can be identified and effectively solved to make practice more efficient.

As the inaugural ATG World Cup had four entries from four countries, a public draw was held to determine playing order. Chair of the jury Prof. Joan Cochran Sommers and 1st Vice President Beverley Fess (Canada) presided over the draw, with commentary on the intricacies of the marking from Dr. Herbert Scheibenreif (Austria).

The draw was as follows:
1st Elijah Clements (USA)
2nd Leonid Florin Muravjoc (Sweden)
3rd Radu Ratoi (Republic of Moldova)
4th Joaquín Muñoz Donoso (Chile)

Thursday’s concert started with a welcome from Dr. Courtney Crappell, Dean UMKC Conservatory, along with some memories of Joan Cochran Sommers’ tenure at the university.

Then the lady herself took to the stage to conduct the UMKC Community Accordion Ensemble, where most of the players had attended the UMKC and were former members of the renowned UMKC Accordion Orchestra.

During the concert, Christine Jarquio moved to the piano, and they were joined by Stiven Ramirez Villa on violin. During Concert Samba, Ron Drake gave a wonderful solo on the alto saxophone. For the final three works, former UMKC Accordion Orchestra members Liz Finch, Paula Bechtold and Cathy Sommers Tiritoglu joined for Joan’s Birthday Celebration.

The second half of the concert featured Mirco Patarini (Italy), President of the Confédération Internationale des Accordéonistes (CIA), performing with a string quintet, featuring current members of the Kansas City Symphony Orchestra. They performed a number of works, including Done by Bete Ilin.

For a surprise encore, Mirco was joined by Michael Bridge and Grayson Masefield for a spirited Balkan Dance.