It is once again my pleasure to announce my latest updated and expanded edition and html conversion of one of the twenty-two articles I wrote for the annual AAA Festival Journal between 1997 and 2019.

In this instance, it is from the 2008 issue and about the internationally famed and highly revered composer Ernst Krenek (1900-91 – picture right), who wrote two excellent solos for accordion commissioned respectively by the AAA (Toccata, 1964) and later on, the ATG (Acco-music, 1976) during his long and final settling in America.

In both works I had the pleasure and honor of personally associating with Krenek, being the first to play for him and then commercially record the Toccata at his request; and, secondly, serving via many letters back and forth between our respective homes in the Baltimore area and Palm Springs, California, as an accordion advisor during his composing Acco-music in early and mid-1976.

Krenek’s Toccata is composed in the grand and somewhat thunderous style of works under that traditional generic title, falls into four highly contrasted sections that are joined together attacca, and makes marvelous and highly idiomatic use of the accordion’s technical and expressive capabilities. An indispensable and proud “must” for inclusion in every classical accordionist’s repertoire.

View the latest article about Toccata by Ernst Krenek at:
http://www.ameraccord.com/aaacommissions17.php
and hear my recording of Toccata at
http://www.ameraccord.com/aaacommissions.php