Daily Reports of the event including pictures, videos and results at: 2013Coupe

The Confédération Internationale des Accordéonistes (CIA) (IMC-UNESCO) held its highly acclaimed 66th Coupe Mondiale in Victoria, British Columbia from 17th to 25th August, 2013, hosted by the Canadian CIA member, the BC Accordion Society under the direction of 2013 CIA Honorary Vice President Aleksandar Milojevic.

CIA President Raymond Bodell (United Kingdom), on behalf of the CIA Executive Committee and members, welcomed participants from more than 25 countries to the “magnificent event” which attracted contestants, international jury, CIA delegates, former CIA champions and artists, manufacturers, and visitors from around the globe.

The 66th Coupe Mondiale (top concert category) was won in an intensely close race to the finish line by Russian accordionist Alexander Kolomiytsev (picture lower left). From the top three contestants, over three exciting rounds of competition where each won one of the three rounds, the overall winner, Alexander Kolomiytsev achieved a winning mark of 23.92 narrowly edging out second place winner Nikola Pekovic of Serbia with a mark of 23.89.

As if that wasn’t close enough, just fractions of a point behind them was third place winner, Serbian Marko Sevarlic with 23.72. Incredibly, over three rounds of competition and more than an hour of some of the most magnificent music ever played on and composed for the accordion, spread over several days with marks averaged between nine members of the International Jury, the final results came down to a few hundredths of a mark, making for a most closely contested Coupe Mondiale.

The festival was truly an accordion lovers dream. The pinnacle of accordion events, the 66th Coupe Mondiale festival showcased the accordion in a diverse array of settings from the elite of the classical competition to entertainment and Jazz, from solo to duo to ensemble, from the exhilarating and dynamic Concertino ensemble from Moldova, to the winners of the 2012 CIA International Competition for Ensemble Music the Esse Quintet (Russia), from the ancient Flutina of the early 1800’s to the latest in Digital technology, from parades to concerts, from workshops to trade shows, from transcriptions to brand new original works being presented for the first time, from accordions performing with strings through to choirs and other instruments, the 2013 Coupe Mondiale in Victoria had it all!

Canada hosted the staging of the remarkable 97 piece CIA World Accordion Orchestra VII. Well known Canadian conductor Maureen Jarosh conducted Danse Villageoise by Canadian composer Claude Champagne and founder of the World Accordion Orchestra Joan Cochran Sommers (CIA Vice President) conducted her magnificent arrangement of selections from Les Miserables featuring New Zealand Tenor, Lionel Reekie.

The orchestra comprised many CIA officials including Raymond Bodell (CIA President and Concert Master), Kimmo Mattila (General Secretary), Herbert Scheibenreif (Vice President), Kevin Friedrich (Ambassador) and other guests such as the members of Concertino, Jazz artist Renzo Ruggieri, former CIA World Champion Alexander Sevastian, Scandalli President and well known Italian artist Mirco Patarini, President of the Chinese Association of Accordionists (CAA) Li Cong, President of the Austrian Accordion Association (HVO) Werner Weibert, President of the USA’s Accordionists and Teachers Guild, Intl. (ATG) Betty Jo Simon and many others including contestants, delegates and guests. The video of the performance can be found on the World Accordion Orchestra page of the Canadian review at: http://www.coupemondiale.org/2013/ca_report_wao.html

Held in the impressive two tiered Alix Goolden Concert Hall, with its magnificent pipe organ as a backdrop, attendees at the 66th Coupe Mondiale World Accordion Championships were treated to a week long celebration of the accordion featuring some of the world’s finest young accordionists in competition through to the seasoned artists of today.

Featured guests included the popular ensemble from Moldova ‘Concertino’, renowned Jazz artist Renzo Ruggieri, Roland expert Ludovic Beier, well known US accordionist Cory Pesaturo (CPEZ) who performed solo and with violinist Yasmine Azaiez, Esse Quintet, the Voronezh Trio, Jelena Milojevic who performed solo and with clarinettist Francois Houle and the Vox Humana Choir, 2007 World Champion Alexander Sevastian who performed as soloist and with the Emily Carr String Quartet and members of the Ballet Victoria who performed to original accordion works.



Workshops included a look into ‘The World of Jazz’ by Renzo Ruggieri (Italy), a presentation on the all new Roland FR-8X by the leading exponent of the Roland accordion Ludovic Beier (France) and an Accordion History Lecture/Demo by Dr. Helmi Harrington (USA).

Nestled in amongst the various CIA events, was the Roland Canada Finals, where top Roland artists from Canada competed for the right to represent their country at the International V-Accordion competition in Rome in October. Canadian accordionist who is quite well known in the USA, Michael Bridge, dazzled the audience with his spectacular rendition of the 1812 Overture by Tchaikovsky, which even began, much to everyone’s amusement with the “tuning of the orchestra”. Previous winners of the competition Ivan Preanicov (2008), Jelena Milojevic (2010) and Alexander Sevastian (2009) joined together for an ‘All Star’ Roland Trio.

In their endeavors to promote new compositions for the accordion, the CIA held a showcase of new solo works for the accordion in 2012/2013 which were being presented at the Coupe Mondiale for the first time. The new pieces were evaluated by the International Jury members as well as delegates, contestants and audience members. After hearing all the compositions in concert, the works selected to be promoted by the CIA as part of their 2013 Composers Portfolio were as follows:

– Beijing 2011 by Franck Angelis
– Valse-Caprice by Viatcheslav Semionov
– Fantastic Suite “Images” No. 1 by Sergei Lobkov
– Paco by Gorka Hermosa

During the Coupe Mondiale festival, the CIA held its 130th General Assembly of Delegates, where President Raymond Bodell (United Kingdom) was re-elected unopposed for a second term of office. The elections for all other positions will be held at the 132nd General Assembly of Delegates in Salzburg, Austria next year.


The CIA presented their prestigious CIA Merit Award, recognizing outstanding contributions to the International Accordion movement to Miljan Bjeletic (Serbia) and Joseph Petric (Canada) and began making plans to host World Accordion Day next May in Ikaalinen, Finland at the CIA Headquarters, hosted by Frederic Deschamps, Grayson Masefield and fellow members of the CIA Executive team.

Event organizer Aleksandar Milojevic and the BC Accordion Society was credited with the tremendous outcome of the festival and its focus on the young competitors. From organizing more than $30,000 in cash prize money which he was able to award to the top five ranking place getters in each category, to arranging home stays for the overseas competitors, to showcasing the elite of the classical Coupe Mondiale competition at the evening concert, to highlighting each of the competitors on the Gala Awards Ceremony, his legacy as organizing an International festival of the highest artistic quality, featuring some of the world’s leading artists in a variety of genres, will always be remembered as a highlight for the accordion in 2013.

For the first time, the Coupe Mondiale competitions and select concerts were Live Streamed. A popular addition to this years festival, coordinator Frederic Deschamps was able to allow viewers from around the world to view the competitions as they happened, with all performances being archived for later viewing. In addition to the Live Streaming, daily reports including details and pictures from each day’s activities as well as video footage is available at the Coupe Mondiale website where readers can enjoy easy access to the videos of the top three place getters in each category, as well as full results from the competitions. Many thanks to Harley Jones, Carol Yan, Graham Laurie and Alison Worthington for their dedicated commitment and assistance to ensure that all the events were documented through pictures and video footage.

The top three winners from each of the categories of International competition were as follows:

66th Coupe Mondiale
1st. Alexander Kolomiytsev – Russia
2nd. Nikola Pekovic – Serbia
3rd. Marko Sevarlic – Serbia

Masters Coupe Mondiale
1st. Nikola Kerkez – Serbia
2nd. Sergey Lobkov – Russia
3rd. Pavel Mikhalev – Russia

Junior Coupe Mondiale
1st. Bozidar Rajic – Serbia
2nd. Mao Junhao – China
3rd. Aleksandr Komelkov – Russia

Intl. Competition for Virtuoso Entertainment Music
1st. Radu Laxgang – Moldova
2nd. Tian Jianan – China
3rd. Matteo Marinelli – Italy

Junior Intl. Competition for Virtuoso Entertainment Music
1st. Lorenzo Bosica – Italy
2nd. Jiacheng Xue – China
3rd. Jean-Baptiste Baudin – France

Intl. Competition for Ensemble Music
1st. Balin-Vioyan, Tian Jianan (acc) & Yuan Gong (vln) – China
2nd. Duo Jeux D’anches, Nikola Kerkez & Marko Sevarlic (Accordions) – Serbia
3rd. Boreas, Alexander Matveichuk & Konstantin Izotov (Accordions) – Russia

Intl. Competition for Digital Accordion
1st. Klavdiya Tarabrina – Russia
2nd. Michael Bridge – Canada
3rd. Alicia Baker – USA-ATG

The USA, represented by its joint CIA members, the American Accordionists’ Association (AAA) and the Accordionists and Teachers Guild, Intl. (ATG) was well represented at the festival with contestants in several categories, each presenting themselves as wonderful ambassadors of both the USA and the accordion.

Each of the US contestants performed to the best of their ability, and delivered programs that were not only technically sound and professional, but full of musicality and artistic presentation. Each can be proud of their accomplishments and should feel very satisfied with their efforts. The nature of a competition, is that it results in a ranking, and only one person will ultimately take 1st place, however each of our US contestants should consider themselves winners, and the efforts put forward by themselves and their teachers and families to achieve their world rankings, is truly commendable.

I was very proud of each and every one of the US contestants, and was happy to see them enjoying listening to and meeting their fellow competitors from around the world. I’m sure each of them enjoyed the experience of this gala international competition. The US achievements were as follows:

International Competition for Virtuoso Entertainment
11th. Sam Thomas (USA-AAA)
13th. Alicia Baker (USA-ATG)
15th. Jamie Maschler (USA-AAA)

International Competition for Ensemble Music:
6th. En Canto (USA-AAA)

Junior International Competition for Virtuoso Entertainment Music:
11th. Rachel Marie Quirbach (USA-AAA)
12th. Torleif Rafeek Stumo (USA-AAA)
13th. Naomi Harris (USA-AAA)

International Competition for Digital Accordion
3rd. Alicia Baker (USA-ATG)

In addition to the contestants and attendees from the United States, Mary Tokarski (AAA Board of Director), Kevin Friedrich (AAA and ATG Board of Director) and Joan Sommers (ATG Board of Director and AAA Member) served as members of the International Jury for several of the competitions, while Joan Cochran Sommers, founder of the World Accordion Orchestra, conducted her magnificent arrangement of Les Miserables for World Accordion Orchestra VII, featuring Lionel Reekie (New Zealand Tenor). ATG President, First Vice President and Treasurer Betty Jo Simon, Liz Finch and John Neu respectively and Board member Donna Dee Ray, and Joan Grauman (AAA Board Member and Historian) performed in the World Accordion Orchestra, while AAA affiliate ‘A World of Accordions Museum’ under the direction of Dr. Helmi Harrington presented a standing room only workshop on the history of the accordion, and offered a popular weeklong exhibition with a traveling display from the Museum.

For a full review of the event including pictures, videos and results, please visit: 2013Coupe

Picture below is the World Accordion Orchestra VII presentation to Conductors Joan C. Sommers and Maureen Jarosh and vocalist Lionel Reekie.