AAA Board member Dr. Schimmel is the featured Accordionist in the Hit Broadway revival of “Carousel”. Dr. William Schimmel performs Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel in a new orchestration by Jonathan Tunick which heavily features the accordion. Ironically, the accordion was not part of the original orchestration in the first 1945 production and subsequent productions. Here, the accordion adds a new dimension to the dark story with redemption at the end.

“Carousel” has been nominated for 11 Tony Awards!

It features a multi racial cast with Joshua Henry (Hamilton) as Billy Bigelow, Jessie Mueller (Beautiful) and Rene Flemming (international opera diva). The Chicago Tribune says: “God is in Carousel”. It has been nominated for 12 Drama Desk Awards, 6 Outer Critic Awards and 3 Drama League Awards. A Cast recording will appear soon.

Dr. Schimmel also can be heard on the new CD “Jarvis and Friends” which features Dr. Schimmel and percussionist Peter Jarvis performing their collaborative composition, “Devotional Suite” and Schimmel’s New York Classical. A second CD features Schimmel in “The Concerto for Accordion and Percussion” by Peter Jarvis performed by The New Jersey Percussion Ensemble. Both CD’s are on The Composers’ Concordance label distributed by Naxos.

Up coming work includes a new album by Schimmel titled, “What’s Tango about the Classics”,A new video by his wife, dancer/choreographer/video artist, Micki Goodman with music by Schimmel entitled “The Owl I thought I knew”.

Dr. Wlliam Schimmel is a virtuoso accordionist, author, philosopher and composer. He is one of the principle architects in the tango revival in America, the resurgence of the accordion and the philosophy of Musical Reality (composition with pre-existing music). He received his diploma from the Neupauer Conservatory of Music and his BM, MS and DMA degrees from the Juilliard School.

He has taught at the Juilliard School , Brooklyn College CUNY, Upsala College, New School University, Neupauer Conservatory (dean) and has lectured on accordion related subjects at Princeton , Columbia , Brandeis, University of Missouri , Duke University, Manhattan School of Music, the Graduate Center CUNY, Santa Clara University, The Janacek Conservatory in Ostrava, Czech Republic and at Microsoft.
Dr.Schimmel has performed with virtually every major symphony orchestra in America (and the Kirov ) including a longstanding relationship with the Minnesota Orchestra, as well as many chamber music groups in New York including Ensemble Sospeso and the Odeon Jazz Ensemble. Pop star colleagues range from Sting to Tom Waits, who has made the legendary statement: “Bill Schimmel doesn’t play the accordion, he is the accordion”. He is founder of the Tango Project, which, in addition to his hit recordings with them, has appeared with Al Pacino in the film: Scent of a Woman, for which Pacino won an Oscar. The Tango Project also won the Stereo Review Album of the Year Award, received a Grammy nomination and rose to number I on the Billboard Classical Charts.

He can be heard in other films including True Lies, Kun Dun and many others including films that he both scored and performed and a series of films for the Nature Conservancy which have won numerous prizes in documentary categories.
He is an authority of the music of Kurt Weill, having recorded all of Weill’s music that employs the accordion.He is a prolific composer with many commissions from concert music to Broadway and off-Broadway. He has written countless accordion pieces for himself and others including a test piece for the Coupe Mondiale, the accordions’ most prestigious world competition. His “Portrait No I” for orchestra was conducted by the late Leopold Stokowski.

Dr. Schimmel’s theatre works in collaboration with Micki Goodman have made accordion history.He heads the Neupauer Conservatory Order of the Shield program, a private studies program for gifted students on a graduate and post graduate level. he conducts a successful three day master class and concert series sponsored by the American Accordionists’ Association (where he is distinguished lecturer in residence). . The Confederations International of Accordionists have awarded Dr. Schimmel the distinguished Merit Award for the AAA Master Class and Concert Series as well as his contribution to the international accordion scene. He received the American Accordionists’ Association Distinguished Service Award for Fifty Years of Accordion activity and his work as Lecturer in Residence. He is listed in Who’s Who in America and Great Minds of the 21st Century.

Dr. Schimmel’s yearly Accordion Seminars will take place on July 27, 28 and 29 at The Tenri in New York going into it’s 24th year. The theme is: “Thinking inside the Box”. The event is sponsored by The American Accordionists’ Association.

For further information: AAA
Email: accordionbill@gmail.com