NZ Championships & Festival

Kevin Friedrich's life with the accordion began from a fascination with the visual appeal and unique sound of the instrument, which he first saw and heard at a performance by the Ben Emmett Accordion Orchestra. Kevin started accordion lessons with Ben Emmett, in his home town of Dargaville, at the age of nine.

His perseverance and talent lead to weekly six-hour return trips to Auckland for accordion lessons from Allan Jones and Harley Jones, after the untimely death of Mr. Emmett in 1976. Kevin won the NZAA National Accordion Solo Championship titles in 1979 and 1980, and went on to represent New Zealand in  three Coupe Mondiale World Accordion Championships, attaining a very respectable 5th placing in 1981.

After gaining the Accordion Teachers Diploma of New Zealand, Kevin went on to the USA to study for a Bachelor of Music in Accordion Performance from the University of Missouri, Kansas City (UMKC), supervised by Professor Joan C. Sommers. Kevin went on to studying the Bayan (button accordion) at the Conservatoire Paul Dukas in Paris, France, under Professor Max Bonnay.

Today, Kevin is one of the few accordionists internationally who is proficient to concert standard on both the piano accordion and on the bayan.

As a concert accordionists, Kevin has performed and recorded with accordion orchestras in China, USA, Denmark, Italy, Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Russia, Czech Republic, Australia and New Zealand. He played for many years as part of the International Trio with Julie and Juha Silfverburg.

Whilst Kevin has now made his home overseas, he regularly returns to New Zealand where he continues to promote the accordion through concerts, adjudication and master classes. Most recently, he established the accordion collection in the Dargaville Museum in honour of Jenny Cocurullo and teachers Ben Emmett and Allan Jones.

The collection is called Accordion Gems, a Master Collection of Accordions Through Time. In conjunction with his on-going work with the local Dargaville community, Kevin had commissioned Gem of the Kaipara by Gary Daverne for accordion orchestra, in memory of Jenny Cocurullo.

In the USA, his new home (since the 1980's), Kevin rose through the ranks to achieve positions on the Board for both the American Accordionist' Association (AAA); and the Accordionists & Teachers Guild, International (ATG), positions which he still holds today. On the international scene, Kevin was elected CIA President in 2001, after serving as CIA Vice President. Kevin is very proud that a New Zealander has achieved this role, as the first non-european CIA President.

As CIA President, Kevin has represented the accordion at the International Music Council (IMC-UNESCO), the biggest non-governmental division of UNESCO.  Kevin, has completed his two terms as CIA President and is now the CIA Ambassador and member of the CIA Executive.

Additionally, Kevin is a NZAA Life Member and he holds Honourary Status with the National Accordion Organisation of the United Kingdom (NAO). 

The NZAA thanks and commends Kevin for his service and dedication as CIA President for the past eight years, for his efforts in promoting the accordion, and for his outstanding representation of the New Zealand accordion movement on an international scale, with the award of the NZAA Lifetime Achievement  Award.

The NZAA project is to find all the old historic recordings of accordion performance. Many of these performances were well recorded for National Broadcast Radio or on LP or EP's.  The NZAA project is to remaster these historic recordings to modern digital files, able to be played as CD's. 

There are recordings of John Statham that were broadcast on NZ National Radio that we hope to recover and remaster.

As part of this project, some of the recordings made some 30 years ago by John Statham have been identified and Gary Daverne has remastered them for the NZAA into modern CD quality, to be ready in time for the NZAA 40^th Anniversary.

Gary Daverne has been of invaluable assistance in this remastering of these old recordings and we thank him for his greatly appreciated help.

The results are very good quality, so much so, that the decision has been made to re-release these recordings in the next few days on the MusicForAccordion.com and iTunes websites as well as to have them form part of the Dargaville Museum accordion history display.

I would therefore like to present to John Statham the first of these historical digital files that have been remastered of his performances.  This CD contains six tracks, two are in duet with Maurice Jones (and were performed at the 1980 Coupe Mondiale) and four were recorded about 1996 in Trio with singer Paul Marshal and Maurice Jones.

The NZAA is excited to present this unique part of the history of the accordion in NZ to John Statham as part of their thank you to him for his many years of superb leadership.  We honor the huge contribution that John Statham has made to the accordion in New Zealand. 

On behalf of the Confédération Internationale des Accordéonistes (CIA) Executive Committee, it is a great pleasure to be here today during this 40^th Aniversary Festival.  I have the added bonus of not only representing the CIA, but also being here as a proud NZAA Life Member. 

When John Statham's father gave his eight year old son an accordion for Christmas, he could not have known the significant part the instrument was to play in his life. John took lessons from Victor Johnson, Eddie McCullough, Peter Torckler and Allan Jones, culminating in him winning the New Zealand Solo Accordion Championship Title at the 1967 NZ Accordion Competitions.

He began to take a strong role in accordion activities, joining the committee of the newly formed NZAA in 1971. An active part of the 1980 Coupe Mondiale organizing committee, as part of the promotion, John's contribution also included successfully breaking the Guinness Book World Record for non stop accordion playing.  John successfully completed 81 hours playing, drawing a lot of media attention to the 1980 Coupe Mondiale as well as raising a considerable amount of money for the event.

In addition to compering the entire 1980 Coupe Mondiale Festival, John has compered almost every NZAA Competition Festival since, as well as many other of the NZAA sponsored events.

The accordion has played a major part of John's life - as a professional entertainer for many years, including performing on National Radio and recording an EP in 1985. As a teacher, John has had the pleasure of seeing two of his students, Lance Lincoln and Judith Lincoln become New Zealand Solo Accordion Champions.

John has served on the Board of the Accordion Examination Board of New Zealand (AEBNZ) for 28 years in various roles, currently holding the Vice Chairman position.

In 1982 John was elected the President of the NZAA and has steered his hard working committee on a steady course during his 27 years in this position.  Under his leadership and guidance the NZAA has accomplished many exciting things during these Golden years of the accordion in NZ, including some of the projects that John was successful in such as:

• leading the NZAA in establishing the South Pacific Accordion Championships making the NZAA competitions an International event

• inviting the Winners of the CIA International Competition for Piano Accordion to New Zealand for the last 9 years

• he establishment of the Coupe Mondiale development program for young accordionists culminating in numerous highly placed competitors at the NZ hosted 2009 Coupe Mondiale

• contributing to the tremendous success of the 2009 Coupe Mondiale in Takapuna, and of course watching one of NZ's proudest accordion moments unfold when Grayson Masefield was crowned the Coupe Mondiale winner

• and now of course, thanks to John and his team, we have this extraordinary  NZAA 40^thAnniversary Celebration Festival.

It is with pleasure that the CIA acknowledges John Statham for his years of dedication and commitment to the NZAA and the advancement of the accordion in New Zealand, by unanimously awarding him the CIA Honored Friend of the Accordion Award.