Video: Bernadette – Iron Maiden “Fear of the Dark” for accordion. Bernadette said, “I love the drama of this classic Iron Maiden song. I think it works very well on the accordion and I hope you like my interpretation.”

Bernadette (Conlon) Zabawa is a versatile accordionist living in Illinois for many years. She is a fascinating, talented and accomplished musician. Bernadette shares with us, “Allow me to introduce myself: My name is Bernadette (née Conlon) Zabawa. I am now living in Rockford, Il, in the USA but I grew up near Melbourne, Australia. I was born two and a half months premature and, as a result, I have ROP and have less than 1% sight. I was drawn to classical music from a young age and wanted to play it on the accordion. I also desperately wanted to see the accordion accepted as a serious classical instrument. I was fortunate to be invited to play at many festivals and concerts, as I grew up. I took music exams with the Australian Music Examination Board and I have two Licentiate of Music Diplomas in both Standard Bass Stradella and Free Bass.

I took lessons from various teachers in Australia, including Tatjana Lukic-Marx, who had recently moved to Sydney. I also furthered my studies overseas. In particular, I studied in Ukraine with Professor Ivan Jaskevich, at the Kiev Conservatory of Music; in St. Petersburg, Russia, with Professor Oleg Sharov at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory of Music. I also took master classes in Germany and England. Like most accordionists, I entered whatever competitions I could. I found they gave me a real incentive to practice and improve my playing.

I won the Australian championship seven times and traveled to Auckland, New Zealand, where I won the South Pacific championship four times. I made many friends through the accordion and I especially enjoyed the friendship and encouragement I received when travelling to New Zealand. The New Zealand Accordion Association was very well run and organized and was well established, so it was like traveling to accordion heaven.

I also performed with several orchestras in Australia and played the accordion soundtrack for the Australian TV series Sea Change. I commissioned and premiered Australia’s first concerto for accordion, from composer Michael Easton. It is a beautiful, French Impressionist inspired work, which I later recorded with the State Orchestra of Victoria on the NAXOS label. I’ve also recorded for EMI and Sony. I made several tours of Europe, China and the US.

In the meantime, I taught accordion in Melbourne for several years and I founded and conducted the Accordion Orchestra of Melbourne. This was a dream come true, as I was able to gather together a group of accordion enthusiasts. Together, we played and learned as well as hosted visiting accordionists and groups from all around the world. I toured Austria and Germany with an accordion orchestra from Australia and I toured China with an accordion orchestra from New Zealand. I travelled to the 2001 ATG festival in San Antonio and I also made two solo tours of the US and Canada in 2005 and 2006. In 2006 I retired from active touring and performing and started the next phase of my life. I married a wonderful American, Ed Zabawa and I moved to the US. I couldn’t have chosen a better place to settle than Rockford, as it is home to one of the greatest jazz players alive today, Mike Alongi. So, of course, I took lessons from him and found the discipline of playing jazz a great challenge but extremely rewarding.

At present, Youtube is my outlet for performance and if you are interested, you can type in: Bernadette for accordion, and see my many videos. My channel has many different genre of music, traditional accordion arrangements, pop, some jazz inspired pieces, musette, a little country, rock ‘n’ roll, classical, tangos and some overdubbed duets where I play accordion and bandoneon (my project during the lockdown), and even heavy metal.

Although I studied classically, I love to play different styles of music with the accordion. Each style presents a unique challenge and I am always keen to take the accordion “out of the box” as just a folk instrument. No-one thinks twice that the piano or violin are found in many different genres of music, so why do people expect the accordion only to play folk music? I love living in the USA, but, if I could change one thing, it would be the perception of the accordion by the general public.

Sometimes, I will play a concert, which includes all kinds of different music or music that I have been asked to play, be it anything from classical to country, folk or jazz, and I am always approached and asked to play a polka, as if the person has not heard any of the music I have just played and won’t be satisfied until I play a polka. I knew nothing of the huge, American polka scene, when I first came here and it took me by surprise. I had played traditional German and Austrian polkas before, but I was not aware that America had its own polkas. Actually, as luck would have it, my husband played in polka bands for many years so, I learned from him how to play a good Polish or honky-tonk polka. And, like other forms of music, there is an art to it. It is a joyous, jolly romp, with the upbeats accented, to give it an extra jolt of energy. It takes a while to get used to playing a good polka, just as it takes time to be able to feel the syncopation of jazz correctly. For me, the real joy is learning the secrets of each particular style of music.

To that end, I have also adapted many heavy metal songs for the accordion. Many years ago, when I was still in Melbourne, I was asked to play ACDC’s “Thunderstruck.” In the past I had always said that the only heavy metal I played was my 35-pound accordion but I loved the challenge and made an arrangement which is almost impossible to play. When I started putting videos on Youtube, I included the song and I have been amazed by its popularity. This moved me to try more heavy metal and these songs are also popular. It has made me look at the accordion through different eyes once again. In order to replicate the sound of the bass guitar, I use accordions with Helikon basses. It turns out that they are not only useful for polkas, but they have a very deep and resonant sound, which allows me to play straight accordion and not necessarily use MIDI. I have used MIDI in the past and it does also give richness and breadth to the music but, more than anything, I love the sound of the reeds. I am not a fan of reedless accordions, since they can never come close to the feel of a real musical instrument. Also, the area where you would want them to surpass acoustic instruments is in the weight and they are really no lighter. So, by definition, in my opinion, an accordion must have reeds!

Music has always been a focal point in my life and I am overjoyed to be able to teach my nearly eight-year-old daughter, Stasha. She has grown up with music, even when she was a baby and I didn’t have time to play, I sang to her constantly and there was always some kind of music in the house. Now, she has three videos of her own on Youtube, a solo, a duet with me and a trio that also includes my husband.

The pandemic has brought us even closer together, as she is still learning from home. We practice and play accordion most days and it is the one thing I aim to teach her. Many sighted people can play ball with their children and do many things I cannot. While she is not always a willing pupil – what seven-year-old is? – we take time to practice and play together. I teach her about musical theory and try to foster a love of music. I taught for several years in Melbourne, before coming to the US, but the joy of seeing your own child learn and succeed is immense. She has a wondrous curiosity for life in general and a love of mathematics. She is also learning to figure skate and I know her irrepressible energy, grace, and movement are heightened by her musical discipline and knowledge. This is why I am always looking for opportunities for her to meet and learn from other young accordionists. I would love to see her find wonderful friends across the world in the accordion, as I have. We must always look to foster a love of the accordion among the youth, if the accordion is to thrive.”

For further information: bernadette.zabawa@hotmail.com