Accordions Rising documentary feature film by Roberta Cantow

Accordions Rising is a documentary feature film about the resurgence of interest in accordion music over the last 30-40 years. Though many continue to see the accordion as the stodgy instrument of a bygone era – and accordion jokes abound — it is time to set the record straight!

“Accordions Rising is the most exhaustive and fair representation of the accordion in all its facets—popular, ethnic, jazz, contemporary classical, avant garde– I have encountered thus far in film. Thank you for this lovely exposé. It covered all the bases of the accordion’s strange and wonderful world and truly needed to be done.”

Robert Young McMahan, DMA /composer and contemporary classical accordionist / Prof. of Music Theory, Composition, and Accordion, The College of New Jersey / Officer of the American Accordionists’ Association and Chair of its Composers Commissioning Committee

I have often been drawn to the misunderstood. The accordion turned out to be no exception. Like many others, I grew up with an attitude embedded in the culture regarding the accordion as a kind of low-brow instrument, corny and old-fashioned.

But then, I learned otherwise! I came to understand this attitude was overshadowing the truth: the accordion is actually an incredibly versatile instrument. The possibilities for invention and originality are endless and border on the sublime. It turns out that the accordion and those who play them are everywhere. They’re on the loose, alive and thriving. Though filmed mostly in New York City, depicting the NY cultural scene, Accordions Rising reflects something of the landscape of our very own America, our very own culture and our very own present.

The more in love with accordions and accordion music I became, the more determined I was to celebrate the talents of those who play and compose for them. I am so pleased to have encountered the feast of artists who appear in the film. Hats off to them for so eloquently setting the record straight.

–Roberta Cantow

Roberta Cantow was recognized with her first grant from The American Film Institute while still a graduate film student at NYU. Through the years, The New York State Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts and others provided grants for the completion of 4 film works. She received a NY Area Emmy for her film, Clotheslines, about the symbolic and artistic role of laundry in women’s lives. Her films and additional videos have garnered several Best of Category Citations in film festivals around the country as well as an Award of Excellence for Dreamtime, in 2008 and an Award of Merit for Not a Still Life, both in the document-ary category, from the Accolade Competition. Her work has been exhibited in many of the venues for independents, including a presentation in the Cineprobe Series of the Museum of Modern Art in NYC. Her four 16mm films were selected for archival preservation by the Donnell Media Center, New York City, in 2001. All of her work will be housed in the Sophia Smith Women’s History Collection of Smith College (in perpetuity).