In 2007, Olivier Conan and I co-organized “Accordionology,” which we billed as “a three-day festival featuring the many facets of the much maligned instrument.”

It took place at the legendary Brooklyn music spot Barbès, and featured accordion luminaries Art Bailey, Will Holshouser, Alec K. Redfearn, Peter Stan (Slavic Soul Party), Kamala Sankaram (Squeezebox), Ted Reichman, Alex Meixner, Ismail Butera (Sounds of Taraab), Ivan Milev, Rachelle Garniez, Guy Klucevsek, One Ring Zero, and the 12th Street Playboys. Films were shown, lectures were given. Here is the listing in the New York Times.

The idea for the festival grew out of my M.A. thesis in what I called critical organology, which was based on ethnographic research among accordion players in NYC. The thesis was titled “The Accordion Project: Narratives in the Social Life of a Musical Instrument” (2006).