It is my pleasure to present to you my Annual Presidents Report.

Once again, the accordion has during the past year, been enthusiastically promoted and supported by NZAA members – individuals, groups & orchestras around the country. You will have read in your newsletters, reports of the many notable achievements by some of our extremely talented young accordionists. I would personally like to record here my special thanks for the efforts and commitment you all display in promoting our instrument.

The following is a brief summary of the past years highlighted events.

The Allan William Jones Memorial Scholarship function was held on Sept 14th last year at the Rose Centre in Belmont on Aucklands North Shore. A new venue for this event – smaller and more intimate but well suited to the programme we typically present.

Scholarships were awarded to Calum Anderson for Grades 5 & 6 and jo8intly to Campbell Hill & Alex Selman for Grades 7 & 8.

The Rosebowl for the candidate receiving the highest examination mark was awarded to Gillian McNeil.

The Marie Efford-Masefield Travel Assistance Grant of $600 was presented by Alan & Annette Efford to Mylie & Hilary Thwaites.

This year the AEB Merit Award was presented to Betty Dunbar for her many years as an AEB examiner.

The 56th Coupe Mondiale World Accordion Championships were held in Slovakia & Hungary, with New Zealand represented by 3 NZAA members competing in the International Piano Accordion Competition – Mylie & Hilary Thwaites and Shanxi Upsdell. In addition to the competitions & concerts, the CIA held its 110th General Assembly of delegates. During the Assembly, several nominations were accepted for the CIA Merit Award, honouring outstanding contributions to the International Accordion Movement as well as for the newly established award “Honoured Friend of the Accordion”.

We were of course delighted and extremely proud that NZAA member Christine Adams was voted to receive the CIA Merit Award for her development of the Accordions Worldwide International News and the NZAA Secretary Marie Jones received the Honoured Friend of the Accordion award in recognition of the many years of work coordinating NZAA activities.

Regrettably the accordion world lost a great friend when Tom Collins passed away peacefully on 7th February this year. Tom was a wonderful person who did so much for our instrument. He played all over the world, wrote music. And gave people tremendous pleasure from all his activities. Whenever he visited NZ(which was at least 26 times) he made himself available to help by attending and always participating in camps, lectures, rehearsals and performances. He was loved wherever he went and we will all miss him very much.

The accordion classes of the North Shore Performing Arts Competition Society on Sunday 9th May were totally dominated by NZAA members who won all of the major placings.

The 2004 NZ & South Pacific accordion Competitions & Festival was once again a great success. The Friday night Mix N Mingle function was well attended and provided an excellent forum in which to welcome our featured Guest Artist Pavel Mangasyarian as well as our overseas entrants from China & Australia, together with the NZ entrants in our premiere solo class. The draw for playing order for the 6 entrants also took place during the evening.

Once again our premiere solo class ran in accordance with the rules of the Coupe Mondiale International Piano Accordion Competition. These rules were introduced to our Championship 3 years ago, with the result that the NZAA has been represented at World Championship level each year since then.

The Sunday Afternoon Concert again proved to be a huge success. Pavel Mangasaryan thrilled the audience with his accordion mastery, demonstrating why he was judged the winner of the 2003 International Piano Accordion Competition. The concert also showcased selected NZ and South Pacific class winners. It also provided us the opportunity to publicly thank our 3 members who competed at the 2003 Coupe Mondiale, Mylie & Hilary Thwaites & Shanxi Upsdell, who were presented with special awards acknowledging the hours of practice, their single-minded dedication, along with the personal expenses of both time & money to compete at this level.

We simply could not pass up a perfect opportunity to publicly present to Marie Jones the CIA Honoured Friend of the Accordion Award & to Christine Adams the CIA Merit Award.

Another memorable competition weekend concluded with a Farewell Dinner at Fairway Lodge in Glenfield where trophies were presented to the South Pacific Championship Class winners Campbell Thwaites for the 12 & Under section, Julie Ding, 15 years and under and Ann-Elise Koerntjes of Australia for the premiere class. Special awards were also presented to this years recipients:

The Samantha Rutherford Memorial Trophy - Travis McWalter
The Cecil Smith Trophy - Grayson Masefield
The Cocurullo Family Trophy - The Thorpe Family
The Doreen & Ben Emmett Memorial Rosebowl - Alex Selman
The Emmett Family Classical Ensemble Trophy - Zhu Ying & Li Yan from China
The Ben Emmett Accordion Orchestra Commendation Trophy - North Shore Music Makers conducted by Christine Adams

While reviewing our Championship weekend I think it is important to mention the NZAA’s commitment to its sponsorship of travel to New Zealand for the Coupe Mondiale International Piano Accordion Competition winner. This sponsorship is to be reviewed shortly so I would like to make a personal comment in my report regarding this. I’m certain you will all agree that the huge impact created by the performances of Alexander Pouleuve last year and Pavel Mangasaryan this year have graphically illustrated the benefits that could accrue to our organization if we seize the opportunity to capitalize on future visits by such virtuoso performers. Not only are they such wonderful and inspirational role models for our own students, but the potential to attract new interested audiences is immense.

This was highlighted to me this year by the caretaker at EGGS, who had probably never before heard an accordion played seriously and certainly not to the standard of Pavel Mangasaryan, being totally absorbed by the whole spectacle, to the point that he remained behind after watching the concert to seek out Pavel to obtain his autograph. By his own admission the whole weekend event absolutely captivated him. I believe we are missing a huge opportunity by not adequately publicizing the event generally and in particular our Sunday afternoon Concert, featuring a world-class musician.

With dwindling attendance at our Competitions, which relates to loss of door takings, and operational losses, we do have a real opportunity to compensate by attracting larger audiences by adopting a more positive and proactive approach to marketing and advertising the event. This does not require a large budget, because much of it can be accomplished with little or no $ spend. What it does require is a person or persons who are committed to the task, who are prepared to make the time and effort to explore all of the opportunities available. I will address this subject within our committee as part of our Championship debrief. I am committed to achieving a satisfactory resolution to this deficiency.

I have to say that this past Competition weekend has to be described as the best organized ever, but there must always be room for improvement. Already suggestions and comments relating to the event have been requested and received, so that a full and objective debrief and analysis of the weekend can be achieved.

My special thanks to all those who assisted during the Competition weekend. It really is a huge undertaking to stage an event like this, requiring the input of so many dedicated people who give so freely of their valuable time, year after year.

Finally, I would like to thank my hardworking committee for their continuing support and commitment during the past year. Being a committee member can sometimes feel like a thankless task, and those committee meetings always seem to conflict with other engagements. Anyway, thank-you for the effort you always put in, especially during these hectic weeks leading up to the Championships and during the event itself.

John Statham
June 2004
President
New Zealand Accordion Association Inc.