Québec Style Button Box - "La Boîte à Pitons"
The one-row diatonic accordion is a featured instrument of Québécois music. Brought over from Europe in the 1850’s, it quickly established itself as a favored instrument for inspiring dancers over the years. This class will feature the best known tunes of some of French Canada’s most famous composers and players, such as Alfred Montmarquette, Philippe Bruneau, and Marcel Messervier. Although the class is centered on the one-row diatonic accordion in D, it is open to anyone wanting to explore this music and on any instrument, including fiddle, guitar, mandolin, and harmonica. The class will be taught by ear but there will also be sheet music available.
About Louis Léger
Septuagenarian Louis Léger was born in Moncton, New Brunswick, speaking French in an Acadian family. He spent his wild youth in France playing old-time and jugband fiddling with The Stringband, busking in Germany, France, and Switzerland. He moved to Santa Barbara, California in the 1970s and taught fiddle to a host of young fiddlers at the time, including John Travolta. For 20 years, he taught orchestra and band in public schools in California and Oregon. When his son started playing, the two of them focused on French-Canadian fiddling and began a long search for their Acadian roots in the music. These days he mostly plays button accordion, but he’s been known to play fiddle, banjo, mandolin, guitar, and spoons (of which he was once a world champion, before there were world championships).