KATHERYN PETERSEN

“The Big Squeeze” is the film Noir influenced opening night show of this year’s Accordion Noir Festival, Sept 13-16th. Geoff Berner is host for this shadowy affair at the Cobalt that will feature the delicately raw talent of Norwegian accordion siren, Guro von Germeten, the sequined Glam Folk of Proud Animal and three mini-features involving unwholesome collaborations of local accordion artists with puppetry, wrestling and a burlesque ballerina. Things are shaping up nicely and we will have a website soon with more details and hints about who to watch out for….

The Reptiles have been woodshedding at Watershed Studios lately working on their new album. It is a stellar cast of characters. Alison Jenkins on Clarinet, Accordion, Trumpet and Vocals, Noah Walker on Guitar, Amrit Basi on Darbuka, Michael Alleyne on Stand Up Bass, newest Reptile Elliot Vaughnn on VIOLA (not violin!), myself on Accordion and of course our songstress flower Burcu Erbeyli. The release party will be ridiculously inspired and you won’t want to miss this piece of history in the making ~so stay tuned.

I am very excited to be producing an event for the fifth annual Accordion Noir Festival, Sept 13-16th, 2012! It is called “The Big Squeeze” and it will be on Thursday, Sept 13th, the opening night of the Festival.

It is a film noir influenced night of Accordion madness featuring deadly pairings of top accordion players with outstanding artists from other ‘misfit’ artistic disciplines in a venue shadowy and notorious enough to make you wanna double cross your own cousin ~the recently renovated Cobalt!

Confirmed are headliner Guro von Germeten, alt-indy accordion siren from Norway and host local klezmer punk legend Geoff Berner.

The other performers are TBA as of yet, but rest assured this event will raise the bar forever on what is possible in the world of transgressive accordion art. A burlesque ballerina paired with the Norwegian chanteuse? A spoken word icon with a power rock accordionist? Hmmmm this could get messy!

I am excited to have been chosen to be a perfomers at the 10th annual ANU show – a live interarts performance – this March 15th. The event is produced by one of my favorite artists, Tanya Evanson. Tanya is a gifted poet and I had the good fortune to work with her years ago on a video that featured Tanya and her song -poem “Almost Forgot my Bones”. It is very exciting after all these years and travels to be working with Tanya again and especially for this year’s ANU which delves into the topic of the Mother. A big topic to be sure.

I have had a busy year Teaching the Accordion and I am enjoying the range of students that have come through the door. My students range in age from 6 to 80, and hail from backgrounds as diverse as Czech, Bretton, Irish and East Indian. Their musical preferences are just as colourful and I have transposed, and worked with them on allot of fantastic music. One of my favorite teaching experiences was this Fall in Dunster where I gave three days of workshops as part of the Songbirds Moveable Music School. The drawing posted here is of one of my students. Her sister drew it and they gave it to me at Christmas. It is one of my favorite images and reminds of what a joy it is to play.

Yesterday I played for CLICK (Contributing to Lives of Inner City Kids) at their promotional day on Granville Island at 1000 Villages. If people wanted to contribute they could ask the people at the till to put 15% of their purchase toward CLICK. I had the honour of contributing musical festivity to the event with my accordion. There was a genuine sense of joyousness and for the first time this season I really felt like Christmas was in the air.

Just back from two amazing weeks on the snowy road with Joanna Chapman Smith and Mat Martin. Despite the daunting driving conditions of traveling through blizzards and frozen Ice Fields of BC and Alberta, the sites were spectacular, the music was sublime, and the people who we met and played for more than well worth it. It seems to me that there is something galvanizing about surviving extreme conditions together and particularly as bandmates –however shortlived. We have one more show together in this configuration, as “Joanna Chapman Smith and the Adequates”. Joanna and Mat leave on their train residency on Tuesday the 29^th. After that Mat heads back to England and Joanna stays in Toronto to spend the holidays with her family. So I am sad that my little band family is splitting up so soon. It has been a particularly exceptional combination of talents and sounds which may or may not have future tours together –too many unknowns right now for three people based out of three far separated cities. So I am suggesting that if you want to hear what we have been up to that you join us for our last show this coming Sunday, November 27^th. It is a house concert that we are sharing with the End Tree boys. If you are interested in coming out drop me a line through my contact page and I will give you some deets. Harumble for that!