The Leavenworth International Accordion Celebration, June 25-29, 2026 sponsored by the Northwest Accordion Society will feature Gail Campanella who will present a workshop designed to improve your accordion skills:

“Creating A Program That Connects With The Audience With Gail Campanella”
Time: Sat 1:30-2:30 PM at Grange/Upper

How does a performer choose the right repertoire for a performance? This workshop uses a few basic ideas (playing what you like and know) to choose repertoire to build that connection with the audience that most performers seek to establish.

The workshop will present strategies for different kinds of performances, from formal concert presentations to casual background music gigs. It will also give various strategies for structuring the pieces in a performance, like when to grab an audience’s attention or when to play something relatively calm. Participants do not need to bring their accordions to this workshop.

Gail Campanella has a flair for the dramatic as she brings the old accordion classics to life for new audiences, which is no surprise as she began her accordion journey at a young age.

She first cracked open that “mysterious suitcase” as a young girl on a farm in rural Colorado which led her to begin accordion lessons at age 10. By age 14 she was teaching her own students while studying with Anthony Pennetti in Denver. She did a piano major in college while simultaneously studying accordion with Robert Davine. She put her music skills to work professionally teaching music in the public schools of Denver and playing honky-tonk piano on weekends.

This mix of skill and performance panache has brought her to performances for accordion groups all around the US and in Europe. She is a board member of the ATG, plays in Stas Venglevski’s Houston Accordion Orchestra, teaches and performs at the Rose City Accordion Camp in Oregon, and maintains an active teaching studio near her home in Santa Barbara, California.