Former President of the Confédération International des Accordéonistes (CIA), Kevin Friedrich will perform with NZ accordionists Lionel Reekie and Maurice Jones at the Dargaville, NZ Museum on Sunday, March 25th. Kevin is also a Board Member of the AAA and ATG and former Editor of the USA News.

Kevin Friedrich is curating a display at the Dargaville Museum to celebrate 40 years of the NZAA. This display, originally intended to be in June 2011, was postponed to hold a display unable to return to a Christchurch Museum. The NZAA is sponsoring a bus to the opening of the event, which also includes a concert at the Lighthouse. These concerts are always popular events. Bus, $35, Ticket to concert $20, Total for Day Trip $55.

This is also the 50th Birthday year for Kevin who will receive a Lifetime Achievement Presentation from the NZZA.

The name of the display, ‘Wakefield to Masefield’ came from an excerpt from The History of the Accordion in New Zealand by Wallace Liggett. A reference does exist in the journal of Edward Jerningham Wakefield, one of the earliest English colonists, and his entry from the 24th of September 1839 contains an amusing reference to his use of an accordion:

“One named Te Kaera diverted us much by….bringing a long pointed spear within inches of our bodies: then retreating with a roar of laughter every time he saw us shrink from the thrust…………I repaid him his surprise the first day that he came on board. I had got an accordion under a large cloak, and kept time to its notes with my mouth, so as to deceive him and twenty other natives into the idea that I was uttering the various sounds.”

This is the first documented playing of an accordion in New Zealand and the Museum Display takes its name from the Wakefield performance to Grayson Masefield winning the Coupe Mondiale World Championship in New Zealand in 2009.

For more information: Kevinfriedrich@hotmail.com