Concert Association announces program change

(Photo submitted) "Minnesota Nightingale" Diane Jarvi will join the Café Accordion Orchestra for a performance at the Clay County Regional Events Center on Friday, Mar. 20.

The next offering of the Spencer Area Concert Association, which was to have been the Canadian ensemble Beyond the Pale, has had to be cancelled because of the cancellation of their U.S. tour. However, another concert has been scheduled for the same date, time, and place. The Café Accordion Orchestra will perform on Friday, Mar. 20, at 7:30 p.m. in the Grand Ballroom of the Clay County Regional Events Center with guest vocalist Diane Jarvi.

Based in Minneapolis, Café Accordion Orchestra (CAO) has been delighting audiences and dancers alike since 1995. They have appeared in New York at the Lincoln Center's Midsummer Night Swing series, the International Akkordeon Festival in Vienna, Austria, and the Minnesota State Fair, as well as festivals, theaters, and dance halls across the United States. They have also been heard on Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion.

CAO performs an eclectic mix of vintage swing, Latin, American, and French café music. Their music evokes the repertoire of the Bal Musette orchestras that were popular in Parisian cafés and bistros in the 1920s through the 1950s. The heart of this repertoire is the romantic gypsy-influenced valse-musette, or swing waltz. CAO complements the musettes with swing, ballads, tangos, paso dobles, boleros, rumbas, and cumbias to create a wonderfully varied show. While they inject their music with good humor and expressive abandon, their high level of musicianship and passion for performance makes them an entertaining concert act.

CAO is led by Dan Newton on the accordion and vocals. Newton, who is also known as "Daddy Squeeze," is also the driving force behind such groups as Jumbo Ya Ya, a quintet specializing in Zydeco, Cajun blues, and swamp pop, and the Daddy Squeeze Trio, who swing the standards, generate Latin and rock grooves, and surprise their audience with slightly twisted covers of forgotten pop tunes.

CAO will be joined for this concert by Diane Jarvi, who is a singer, songwriter, guitarist, and kantele (Finnish folk harp) player. Jarvi is known for her intimate and authentic interpretations of tangos, waltzes, gypsy music, ballads, jazz standards, and cabaret songs from around the world. Her recordings are heard on radio throughout Europe and Australia, as well as around the U.S. She has been the recent subject of two film documentaries, Muistot and Kaipuu, by the award-winning Finnish filmmaker Erkki Määtänen. Jarvi is known in Finland as Minnesotan Satakieli--"The Minnesota Nightingale."

This concert is part of the 2008--09 Spencer Area Concert Association concert series. Spencer, Sheldon, Algona, and Windom concert association season ticket holders can attend it at no additional charge by presenting their season tickets at the door. General admission tickets are $16.50 for adults and $8.25 for students. They can be purchased in advance at Events Center box office or through Ticketmaster, or at the box office on the evening of the performance.

As with other concerts this year, free transportation is available for Spencer members who need it thanks to the Regional Transit Authority (Rides) and Spencer Municipal Utilities. To arrange for transportation, phone 262-4307 by noon Thursday, Mar. 19.