Kansas City accordion orchestra goes beyond polka

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- To many Americans, the accordion brings to mind Lawrence Welk, polka music and lederhosen.

And the thought of an accordion orchestra, like the one Joan (pronounced Jo-Anne) Sommers directs in Kansas City, elicits guffaws and grimaces.

"People would have a horrific impression in their mind of 100 accordionists all playing polka at the same time," Kevin Friedrich, president of the International Confederation of Accordionists, said of playing for Sommers at the University of Missouri-Kansas City in the early 1980s.

Accordion enthusiasts, however, know better.

Members of Sommers' group -- the University of Missouri-Kansas City Community Accordion Orchestra -- squeeze everything from Gershwin to Bach from their boxes. In its nearly 42-year existence the orchestra has won awards and praises, and until Sommers, 69, retired from teaching in 2000, it attracted students from around the globe to a college in America's heartland.

"I think my orchestra had an international name," Sommers said.

Membership in the orchestra, which has always varied from year to year, is around 15 today. Only one member, however, is a student at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, because the school has stopped accepting new people into the accordion program until a decision is made on Sommers' replacement. Before her retirement, Sommers usually would have about 10 accordion students.

It's unclear what will happen to the university's accordion program, but Sommers hopes budget concerns won't prevent the university from hiring a full-time teacher soon.

"We've always been a leader here," she said.

Meanwhile, Sommers goes on leading the orchestra, and hopes to take a major tour in 2004.

In accordion circles, her orchestra is regarded as top-notch.

"The Missouri orchestra, I think is probably the best one in the United States," said Walter Kuehr, who owns an accordion shop in New York City and leads an all-women orchestra there.

Kuehr, a 47-year-old native of Germany, acknowledges that some accordion music is "cheesy," but says that's not the case with the music Sommers's orchestra plays.

"This is purely classical. This is not cheesy at all," Kuehr said.

Sommers' group performs much like a symphony orchestra. It gives a concert every spring at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Center for the Performing Arts. The orchestra also will play for churches, conventions and other groups. Each summer, the accordionists leave Kansas City to play elsewhere.

When watching the accordionists play, the sound of the music can be surprising to some people. An untrained ear may think the music is coming from a variety of instruments, including clarinets or flutes. Except for the percussionists, however, it's all accordions.

Switches on the accordion allow a player to change between its four reeds -- from the high piccolo reed to the low bassoon reed, Sommers says. Also, some people in her orchestra play bass and tenor accordions, providing an even greater range.

"It is incredible," she said. "And that's why if people have never heard an accordion orchestra, they think it's just 10 accordions playing. But it isn't. It really is an orchestral sound."

Sommers, who grew up in Independence, Mo., was 9 when a salesman came to her family's door and convinced her parents it would be a good idea for she and her brother to play the accordion. By the age of 14, she was teaching others how to play.

"It was something I liked very much, it seems like, from the beginning," Sommers said.

Despite never receiving a college education, she was able to establish the University of Missouri-Kansas City's accordion program and orchestra in 1961.

The orchestra has won national titles, and toured Europe, New Zealand and Australia. Sommers says it has had as many as 60 members over the years -- some of them from other countries, including New Zealand, China, Norway and Canada.

Friedrich, a New Zealand native who now lives in New York, says that when he came to the university in 1980, "the reputation had already sort of spoke for itself."

He says being in the orchestra was important because of the kind and quality of music the group played, and because he was able to hang out with other accordionists.

"It was quite special, really," Friedrich said of his time at the university.

While some of Sommers' students have gone on to teach music, she admits it's tough to make a living playing the accordion.

"We have same problems that any other musicians have," Sommers said. "We have an image problem too, sometimes. People don't know what the instrument can do. They're only aware of what they've seen on TV."

------

On the Net

UMKC Community Accordion Orchestra: www.accordions.com/umkc

International Confederation of Accordionists: www.accordions.com/cia