SQUEEZE PLAY
ACCORDION ORCHESTRA TAKES ON BACH, QUEEN
By LARRY GETLEN
May 13, 2007 -- It may give one pause to hear a middle-age man recall a dream in which 18 young women cavort around in pigtails. But the subconscious mind of Walter Kuehr added an element that transformed it from creepy to inspired: In Kuehr's dream, the girls all played the accordion.
"I was at an accordion festival in Pennsylvania," says the Frankfurt-born Kuehr, owner of the Lower East Side accordion shop Main Squeeze Accordions.
"I came back and went to bed, and I had a dream that I would conduct an all-female accordion orchestra, and that the girls would wear pigtails and the music would be beautiful. It was the best dream I ever had."
Inspired by his nocturnal musing, in 2002 Kuehr formed the Main Squeeze Orchestra, an all-female accordion orchestra that plays everything from Madonna to Bach to "Bohemian Rhapsody."
His eagerness was such that initially, the requirement for entry - in addition to gender - was the ability to hold the instrument.
"He said, 'I had this dream, you have to be in this orchestra,'" recalls Marianne DeMarco, who says Kuehr asked her to join during her second or third lesson. "I said, 'Well, I never played before,' and he said, 'No problem. We'll get you right up to speed.'"
Talking to Kuehr, his enthusiasm for the instrument is contagious.
"The accordion is intimate," gushes Kuehr, whose orchestra, which features 12-15 members at any one gig, plays the next show in its monthly residence at Mo Pitkins on Saturday night.
"You hold it close, you practically embrace it, and it breathes. And you can get every effect you want out of it. You can sound sad or silly, and you can make someone laugh or cry. That's harder to do on a piano."
For orchestra member Gina Samardge, it's this versatility that gives the instrument its unique appeal.
"There's different ethnic music that uses some form of accordion," says Samardge. "You find it in Brazilian music, Irish music - the breadth of it is amazing. With the different settings, it can be such a great color instrument, or stand on its own."
Whatever the appeal, the members of the Main Squeeze Orchestra throw potential polka prejudice to the wind, as they see the group as a blend of ironic hipster fun and quality musicianship.
"If it were only kitsch, no one would come back, because once you saw us, that would be enough," says DeMarco. "It's a fun time and the kitsch is part of that, but it's also good music."
October 12, 2005
Best of NYC Listing:
Best All-Girl Band Gimmick
The Main Squeeze Orchestra is a New York City-based, dozen-plus, all-girl accordion troupe that overflows the scales of feminine virtue in the name of song. More sugar cube than vegan icing, they do cabaret and camp along with all the bellows' best, while dressed, coiffed, and rehearsed like some Central European Berry Gordy fantasy.
October 5, 2005
LETS LAY TO REST ACCORDIONS GEEKINESS
My friends, it is time to unburden yourselves of your secret. The one you've been harboring for years, hot-faced with shame. Admit it: You love the accordion.
Oh how its chords stab straight to your heart! How it makes you pine for the old country, even if you were born in a cab on the Cross Bronx Expressway. So melodious and moving is the accordion, it deserves much more than snooty snickers. Yet for far too many folks, it is the love that dare not squeeze its name.
Having recently laid Myron Floren - Lawrence Welk's accordionist - to rest, let us lay to rest, too, the hoary notion that the accordion is, in a word, Myron Floren-esque. Okay. That was two words. The single word is: dorky. "For baby boomers, the accordion got associated with cheesy music from the '40s and '50s and blazers and ties and big smiles," says Doug Nervik, an East Village accordionist who admits the shiny instrument always "sexually attracted" him.
Ahem. Well. Anyway. Says Nervik of the Welk-accordion association: "It's not that." Welk's "champagne music" was just one tiny corner of the accordion world, and the most cheese-chocked one, at that. But beyond the Welk reruns forever defining Channel 21 as the goofball in the PBS pantheon, an astounding array of cultures has called upon the accordion. Gypsy dances, klezmer tunes, Argentina's tango and Dominican merengue all depend on the squeezebox, as do such polar extremes as polkas and zydeco.
The accordion can handle this range because it is such a versatile instrument. Or, at least, such a loud one. "There was a time, before the electric guitar, when it was the instrument to play down South because it didn't require amplification," says Marilee Eitner, a member of New York's all-female accordion orchestra, Main Squeeze.
I'll get back to the all-female accordion orchestra, but as I was going to say, since its invention in 1829 Vienna, the instrument has presided over countless country fetes because it has always been, basically, a portable, affordable orchestra.
And that may have contributed to its downfall. "There may have been an economic stigma against it," says Eitner, "because it was a piano substitute for people who couldn't afford real pianos."
Still, there is no denying that the sound the accordion makes when played by the right person - or, in the case of Main Squeeze, the right 14 persons - is thrilling. "It can be sad and silly and it can move you to tears," says Walter Kuehr, who conducts the orchestra when not presiding over Main Squeeze, his accordion shop on the lower East Side.
Kuehr arranges songs by everyone from Madonna to Stravinsky for his posse, and when I heard them rehearsing, the giggles hit hard. But then tears crept in, too. The accordion may look a little too shiny and sound a little too loud, but there's a reason so many cultures - and Channel 21 - keep it around. It always manages to squeeze the heart. If that's dorky, so is art.
Sunday, June 15th 2003
A Squeeze Box Philharmonic
By KELLY ALEXANDER
WALTER KUHR is a man who followed his dream, literally. In March 2002, Mr. Khr, a native of Frankfurt who is an accomplished accordion player and the founder of the Main Squeeze, an 8-year-old accordion emporium on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, attended an accordion festival in King of Prussia, Pa. "I heard all sorts of accordion music," he said. "That night, I dreamed that I was conducting an all-female accordion orchestra with the girls wearing pigtails. It was beautiful."
The next morning, Mr. Khr began assembling the 18 players, ranging in age from the early 20's to the late 40's, who would make up the orchestra; most were already his students. Now, a year of practicing and performing later, the Main Squeeze Orchestra, whose members do in fact play wearing pigtails, will give a 15-song concert at Galapagos Art Space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on Thursday [6/19].
"Surprisingly, I have more female students than men," said Mr. Khr, 47, who learned the accordion from his mother.
"The accordion is a very romantic thing. It is very expressive. It is the total opposite of a drum set. You hold it in your arms, you embrace it."
Marianne Petit, an orchestra member and a former student of Mr. Kuhr's, took up the instrument because "my parents are from Argentina and I got it in my head that I wanted to learn to play tangos," she said.
Indeed, the accordion is among the most global of instruments, having originated, as some believe, in China with the sheng, a sort of bamboo harmonica, and having spread its influence into the folk music traditions of Ireland, Brazil, Germany, Poland, France, Italy and elsewhere. Its peculiar silvery, almost iridescent sound is that rare combination of heartfelt and silly, lending itself perfectly to songs from Strauss waltzes to "Demon Alcohol" by the Kinks, both of which will be featured when the Main Squeeze Orchestra performs.
The Village Voice
April 9th, 2003
Touted as the only all-female accordion ensemble in the Western world, the 18 members... wear their hair in pigtails. The orchestra is the fantasy-made-reality of local accordion impresario and conductor Walter Keuhr. The MSO plays pieces by Schubert, the Beatles and [The Kinks,] among others. You gotta raise an eyebrow at a man who dreamed of leading a troupe of women in pigtails working a squeeze box. Paging Dr. Freud.
TIME OUT, NEW YORK
June 2003
The Orchestra is made up of 16 women. So far, so good. And they all play the accordion. Does it get any more exciting than this?
New York Waste Magazine
February 2003
"I had to high-tail it across town to the Cutting Room to see the All Girl Accordion Orchestra. [which of course we should change to our proper name] Organized and led by Walter Kuhr of Main Squeeze Accordions down on Essex Street this charming 18-piece oompahed the packed crowd. The girls had an array of accordions, from small-ish to jagunda bass ones, and they polka'd their way through accordion classics, all dressed like they were attending a school assembly--white blouse, skirt, boots, and pig tails! It was just gorgeous. I told you the accordion was the new electric guitar! I requested that they learn some rockin tunes for next time, and I was assured that the women are attempting to lead Walter down the primrose path of metal.