Accordion to make debut on Tucson classical music stage

When you think of accordion, you think of European polka or folk music.

Hanzhi Wang wants you to think of Bach and Piazzolla.

On Sunday, Oct. 13, the China-born Wang brings her accordion to Leo Rich Theatre to open Arizona Friends of Chamber Music‘s 2024-25 season with a recital featuring piano-centric works by Italian Baroque composer Domenico Scarlatti, his German counterpart Bach and 21st century Argentinian composer Astor Piazzolla.

Wang says today’s accordion has outgrown its polka and folk roots, courtesy innovations going back to the 1970s.

The buttonboard and keyboard systems have evolved to allow for single notes and varying octaves, opening the door for the instrument’s expanded role in classical music, Wang said.

“Between the buttons, we can reach more octaves and the range of the notes has more compacted in the right hand compared to the keyboard instruments,” Wang said. “We can reach usually two to three octaves on both hands. That also gives more possibilities for three, four melodies at the same time played by the accordion.”

It’s a far more versatile instrument than the one that captured a 5-year-old Wang’s attention when she first heard it. She was watching an Italian film with her dad and was mesmerized by the accordion’s sound.

When her parents asked her what instrument she wanted to learn, she picked the accordion. By 14 or 15, she competed internationally and by 20, she was invited to study at Denmark’s Royal Academy of Music.

The instructor who invited her told her he believed she had the talent to redefine the accordion’s role beyond polka and folk music.

She proved him right when she came to the U.S. in 2017 after Young Concert Artists, the New York artist management firm dedicated to discovering and nurturing the careers of young classical musicians, signed her as its first ever accordionist.

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Her recital on Sunday will be a first for Arizona Friends, who have hosted non-traditional classical music instrumentalists in the past including saxophone and Chinese pipa (lute). It also will be the first time Wang has performed in Arizona.

She is hoping the audience walks away with a newfound appreciation for the accordion in the classical music realm.

“I always feel like the accordion is a combination of keyboard and wind instrument,” she said, explaining how the push and pull of the bellows creates an expansive sound.

When she transcribes works for her instrument, Wang thinks about the idea of the breaths needed to perform a wind instrument and incorporates that in her transcription.

“I hope the audience will notice that it’s slightly different than anything played by a keyboard instrument,” she said.

Wang is not the first to take an accordion to an American classical music stage, but until she came on the scene six years ago, most of those earlier efforts going back to mid 20th century were not taken very seriously.

Wang won’t take any credit except to acknowledge “I really opened another window for audiences.”

“I love to surprise people and when they see how beautiful it is, I really enjoy that,” she said.

Her program includes a trio of Scarlatti’s Sonatas (D minor, C major, G major); selections from Bach’s Goldberg Variations; two self-penned compositions — “My Story” and “Mountain’s Song,” inspired by a pandemic-era trip to the sacred Kawagarbo mountains on the border of Tibet and the Yunnan Province; three works composed for her by Danish-born Martin Lohse, who has written a number of works for accordion; and Piazzolla’s virtuoso works “Milonga del Ángel” (Dance of the Angel) and “La Muerte del Ángel” (Death of the Angel).

Wang’s recital at Leo Rich Theatre, 260 S. Church Ave., begins at 3 p.m. Tickets are $45 for adults (in person or live-streamed), $12 for students with ID at the box office or online at arizonachambermusic.org.