Report
Grand Opening of the updated and expanded Music Wing
and Accordion Gems exhibition at the Dargaville Museum

Dargaville Museum, 30 November 2024, New Zealand, in support of
Accordion Gems by Kevin Friedrich, ...A Master Collection of Accordions through Time...
 

November 30 and December 1st saw the Dargaville Museum become the epicenter of accordion activities as dignitaries, performing artists and guests assembled from as far afield as Italy, China, the United Kingdom, Australia, the USA and across New Zealand.

Hosted by Music Wing curator Kevin Friedrich (right), special guests attending and speaking at the Opening Ceremony of the updated and expanded Music Wing were Grant McCallum (Member of Parliament, Northland, National Party), Craig Jepson (Mayor of Kaipara District), Mirco Patarini from Italy (President of the Confédération Internationale des Accordéonistes, Member of the International Music Council, an Official NGO partner of UNESCO), Professor Li Cong from China (President - Accordion Association of Chinese Musicians Association and Vice President - Confédération internationale des Accordéonistes), Cong Yu (Crystal) Wang from China (Director - Accordion Professional Comm., Shanghai Musicians Assoc., Dean – Dept. of Western Music at Shanghai Normal University), Marcel Riethmann (Chairman of the Accordion Examination Board of New Zealand), Sonja Palinich (President of the New Zealand Accordion Association), Ross Newlove (President of the Dargaville Museum). Speeches were alternated with a spectacular variety of musical items. After the ribbon cutting attendees were piped up to the Music Wing for the official blessing given by Rex Nathan followed by a champagne reception and music wing tour.

The day capped off with a fundraising dinner at the Northern Wairoa Hotel where guests dined to a variety of entertainment including some dance sets after the dinner. The dinner held in honor of the 150th anniversary of the Aratapu Library (1874), the funds raised were directed to the new LED lighting in the display cabinets.

We invite you to enjoy a few pictures from the Opening Ceremony celebrations.

Opening remark by Kevin Friedrich:

On behalf of the Dargaville Museum, a warm welcome to you all, including our esteemed guests of honor from both New Zealand and overseas, our performing artists, and to all of you, who have come along this afternoon to celebrate our rich musical heritage that so many Dargavillians and residents of the Kaiapra have enjoyed over many decades.

Generations of families took music lessons and performed at community functions throughout the Kaipara. Dargaville was a remarkably musical town. With a population of around 4,000 at one time it boasted a Pipe Band, the Town Brass Band, the Tamburica Band and Dancers, numerous accordion bands and orchestras, string groups, choirs, very strong school music programs and distinguished solo artists like Mark Williams and more.
 
Even though I’ve lived in New York most of my life, I’ve always remained very passionate about my Kiwi home town and have enjoyed returning on regular occasion, often for musical events, and over the last 20 years or so, many of these activities have been focused here at the Museum.

The stars began aligning towards the concept of a Music Wing here at the Dargaville Museum back in 2004. I approached the Museum Manager at the time Pene McKenzie to see if the museum might be interested in adding an additional exhibit to their collections wing. I love this wing. You name it, someone has collected it.. bottles, boomerangs, thimbles, spoons, salt and pepper shakers, but I had something maybe a little different, a collection of accordions. Pene was quite interested and enquired as to how many she might expect… 9 or 10? You can imagine her surprise when I said, it was more like 150 or 160. We talked over the collection and its uniqueness and how the accordion was a big part of life in Dargaville at one time, and that was that for the time being.

About a year later, I got a call from Pene. She said she had some exciting news and told me of the Aratapu Library. Pene said, if they could acquire the Aratapu Library, that I could have it as a home for my accordion exhibition and we could compliment it with other music related items that were scattered around the Museum.
 
Ironically, the Aratapu Library was formally owned by the Dargaville Museum. It was acquired in the 1970s and moved to the museum site of that time, which is now the Norfolk Court Resthome. When the museum moved here to Harding Park in 1985, the Aratapu Library, deemed surplus to their requirements, was given to the IHC and shifted to their rural training unit near the Dargaville racecourse at Awakino Point. The IHC later sold that property and the new owner put the Library up for tender.

The pending sale sparked calls from the community for the old building to be kept in the district and the Dargaville Museum put in a tender which included $20,000 from its reserves, donations such as $1500 from the Northern Wairoa Lions Club, and a bank loan. The owner had received tenders from far and wide, but said he had taken a "sympathetic view'' of the Museum's situation and the prized 1874 Aratapu Library was returned to its former owner in June 2006 for an undisclosed price.

On the 18th January 2007, after the roof was removed to allow the building to be moved safely under the power lines that had been added since the building was located to that particular site, the relocation took place in the middle of the night to cause the least amount of disruption, and went almost without incident.
 
Almost without incident! The midnight procession had to be halted enroute, to remove a Penguin that had chosen the middle of the road next to the Northern Wairoa River to make its home for the night. The Penguin was safely returned to the water, and the move continued!

Museum volunteers showered the Library with their community spirit and spent countless months restoring the Aratapu Library to her former glory, turning the poor disheveled abandoned building into the spectacular Kauri gem it once was150 years ago, and as they say... the rest is history.
 
The can-do spirit of this marvelous town has shone through throughout our journey. The volunteers, the contractors and craftsmen who often provided work at heavily discounted prices for us and the generous support of our financial donors have combined to enable us to bring the dream of a Music Wing and our exhibits to reality.
 
Under Pene’s leadership, this Music Wing came to be, and through it all, she had only one request. With a Music Wing full of instruments, she said, it would be just lovely if we could fill the Museum with music periodically. From this, our regular concert series was born and in fact tomorrow afternoon is our 19th fundraising concert.

My Accordion Gems collection profiles the almost 200 year history of the accordion. On the 6th of May 1829, Cyrill Demian filed a patent in Vienna, Austria for his 'accordion'. The patent was approved a short time later on May 23rd.

What followed was a path of innovation, development and experimentation. Throughout this evolution, one has seen uncountable variations in shape, size and keyboard configurations of the accordion, examples of each, being found right here.

Early settlers brought accordions and concertinas on their journey to New Zealand and one of the first displays you’ll encounter in the Music Wing is a depiction of the first arrival of the accordion in New Zealand as documented in Wakefield’s ships log.

Accordion playing had a heyday here in Dargaville during the 1960s, 70s and 80s! Emmett’s music studio, run by Ben and Doreen Emmett taught generations of local Kaipara residents to play as well as organising music exams and competitions. The Frank Vilich studio embraced the traditional Dalmatian heritage and popular music, continued by Irene Langman who took over after Frank left the Dargaville area, while Mary Passell taught and embraced the accordion in dance music settings. Each accordion group performed at numerous community and charity events throughout the Northern Wairoa over many decades.