On May 31, 2026 at the South Pacific and New Zealand Accordion Championships, Raye Freedman Arts Centre, Auckland, the New Zealand Accordion Association (NZAA) made the Life Member Presentation to outgoing NZAA President Sonja Palinich.
NZAA Life Membership Citation for Sonja Palinich
Sonja Palinich began learning the accordion at 9 years of age at the Howick School of Music. She spent a year there receiving lessons from Sheila Haigh, Shirley Yelavich, and Brett Gibson. Following that, she studied under the tutelage of Sheila Haigh, and later Marcel Reithmann at the Music Education Centre.
Sonja sat the AEB examinations culminating in attaining her Accordion Teachers Diploma (ATNDZ) in 1998, and became an Associate of the Institute of Registered Music Teachers (AIRMT) in Accordion and Music Theory in 1999. In 2022, she graduated with a Graduate Diploma in Music from Auckland University. Sonja taught for 13 years on a part-time basis through the West Auckland branch of the Music Education Centre, Taupo School of Music and on a private basis. Many of her students achieved examination and competition successes.
Sonja has been involved with the annual NZAA competitions since she was 10 years old as a solo competitor, and participating in orchestras. She has served as an adjudicator since 1995. In 2008, Sonja joined the NZAA committee, which hosted the 2009 Auckland Coupe Mondiale and became President in 2011. During this time Sonja has liaised with the venue each year, overseeing the contracts for the annual NZAA Competitions and Festival.
Throughout the years, Sonja has been a member of a number of orchestras being the Otahuhu Accordion Orchestra, Musicale, North Shore Accordion Orchestra and Auckland Accordion Sinfonietta.
During her student days, Sonja regularly performed in the community at restaurants, private functions, rest homes and as part of a professional band and orchestra at the Dalmatian Cultural Society. As our President, she has been an NZAA delegate at Coupe Mondiales in Shanghai, Spoleto, Victoria, Salzburg, Turku, Rostov-on-Don, Osimo, Kaunas, Shenzhen, and Bijelina.
In NZ Sonja has supported and attended events in Christchurch with the Christchurch Accordion Association, in Dargaville for the Accordion Museum, and World Accordion Day – attending and performing in person many times.
A well organised and very popular President, Sonja has steered the NZAA committee during the past 15 years with great success.
On behalf of the New Zealand Accordion Association, in recognition for her outstanding contribution and services to the accordion movement in New Zealand, I am honoured to present Sonja Palinich with our highest accolade of NZAA Life Membership.
