Vancouver has an accordion festival... because of course it does

For most cities, an accordion festival would be a unique enough event in itself.

Not Vancouver; we’ve gone one better and created Canada’s only alternative accordion music festival: Accordion Noir Festival.

The festival is celebrating its 10th year, and promises to ‘break all the rules of what is normal or possible’ when it returns to Strathcona on September 7. These accordionists are not messing around.

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Image: Iva Nova

Featuring artists from as far afield as St. Petersburg, events will take place at various locations across the city in an effort to bring a completely different perspective on accordion playing to Vancouver.

If you’re thinking, “this all sounds great, but what I’m really after is a mixture of accordion music and bingo”, then you will not believe your luck. The festival opens with Drink-o-Bingo, a magnificently bizarre-sounding menagerie of bingo, ‘tension music’ and diatribes about quantum physics from Victoria’s Grayson Walker.

Image: Ana Bon-Bon

Conversely, if stumbling into a Scandinavian wedding at 1 am and dancing on the banquet table with Aunt Nella is more up your fjord, Finnish accordion artist and headliner Antti Paalanen brings his unique sound and style to St James Anglican Church on September 8.

With an array of talent on show including ‘Russian ethno-rock quartet’ Iva Nova, there’s something new to experience at every turn across the packed four-day schedule.

Forget what you think you know about accordion music – “Done!” we hear you cry – and give one of these shows a whirl.

Accordion Noir Festival

Where: St James Anglican Church — 303 E. Cordova St, Vancouver
Russian Hall — 600 Campbell Avenue, Vancouver

When: September 7 to 10

Tickets: $7-$20; online