The history of the Roland International V-Accordion Contests began with a Press Conference on 30th October 2007 in Pesaro, Italy. Published at that time was a “History of the Roland V-Accordion“.

Key parts were: In 1967 Ikutaro Kakehashi, the founder of the Roland Corporation, a leading manufacturer of electronic musical instruments, travelled to Italy and had the chance to meet some accordion craftsmen in the Castelfidardo area. He was so fascinated by this instrument that he bought two accordions to bring home and started to cherish the dream of creating an electronic accordion.

This dream was later on supported also by Francesco Rauchi and Luigi Bruti in Roland Europe S.p.A., a member of the Roland Corporation group located in Europe, namely in Acquaviva Picena, in the Marche region.

Thanks to the advanced state-of-the-art achieved by the digital technology, Roland could finally add another milestone in the history of digital musical instruments: the V-Accordion, namely the “Virtual Accordion” equipped with a powerful digital modelling technology.

Central to this Press Conference was the announcement of the 1st Roland International V-Accordion Contest including the announcement of the jury and competition rules.

1st Roland International V-Accordion Contest 2007

Full report and results at: https://accordions.com/index/squ/archives/0711/roland/

2nd Roland International V-Accordion Contest 2008

Full report and results at: https://accordions.com/index/squ/archives/0811/roland/

3rd Roland International V-Accordion Contest 2009

Full report and results at: https://accordions.com/index/squ/archives/0911/roland/

4th Roland International V-Accordion Contest 2010

Full report and results at: https://www.accordions.com/roland/2010festival/

5th Roland International V-Accordion Contest 2011

Full report and results at: https://www.accordions.com/roland/2011festival/

6th Roland International V-Accordion Contest 2012

Full report and results at: https://www.accordions.com/roland/2012festival/

7th Roland International V-Accordion Contest 2013

Full report and results at: https://www.accordions.com/roland/2013festival/

2014 to 2026: Roland Europe (based in Italy) ceased operations as a subsidiary of Roland Japan in 2014, with some operations sold to Proel. Outsourcing to Fatar: To maintain the “Made in Italy” reputation, Roland contracted Fatar srl (located in Recanati, Italy), a well-known manufacturer of keyboard actions, to build the V-Accordion line.

Production Shift: While high-end models like the FR-8x remained “Made in Italy” under the new arrangement, some smaller models (e.g., FR-1x) were produced in China.

Long-Term Impact: The move was designed to merge Roland Japan’s digital engineering with Italian craftsmanship, ensuring continuity for the V-Accordion brand.

Despite this restructuring, discussions in 2023 indicated that Roland is no longer active in producing new V-Accordion models.

Festival Report – 2007 | Festival Report – 2008 | Festival Report – 2009 | Festival Report – 2010 | Festival Report – 2011 | Festival Report – 2012 | Festival Report – 2013