Advanced Accordion Weekend

We're pleased to be able to repeat our accordion workshop weekend for advanced players working at Level 4. This weekend will offer those players the chance to work at a faster pace or cover trickier repertoire in a more intense way, alongside other players of a similar level.

If you consider yourself to be working at Level 1 to Level 3, please take a look at the Summer Accordion Weekend in July.

Halsway favourite Murray Grainger will be leading this course again, bringing with him in-depth sessions on technique, repertoire and interpretation, including a chance to workshop your choice of repertoire in front of the rest of the group. Numbers will be limited to give you maximum contact time, with opportunities for 1:1 support if requested.

Who is it for?

This course is for Advanced accordion players. These are the course levels that we are using.

You'll need to be able to read music fluently. The workshops will be taught at a fast pace and you'll need to be confident in your playing, both alone and as part of a small group.

The Team

Murray Grainger is established as one of Britain’s most influential and innovative accordionists.

Having studied at the Royal Academy of Music, his exceptional ability to move between genres has seen him crossing boundaries across the musical spectrum from traditional, through classical and jazz, to commercial and popular music.

He has performed with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Liverpool Philharmonic, the Scottish Ballet and Opera North; at Glastonbury Festival of Arts, Sidmouth International Folk Festival, Edinburgh Festival, and Celtic Connections; and collaborated with many of the world’s top performers, including Cormac Byrne, Piers Adams, Adam Summerhayes, Miranda Sykes and Martin Allcock.

Murray is a respected educator, teaching at Leeds University, Halsway Manor, Hands on Music in Witney and was formerly head of accordion studies at Chetham’s School of Music. A talented sound engineer, he regularly produces successful albums, including The Baroque Bohemians, Red Priest, which topped the classical charts.

An accomplished player of both piano and button key accordions (as well as the bandoneon and the accordina) he has collaborated with composers creating new works for the instrument and given world premieres of pieces by composers such as Jonathon Dove, Eddie McGuire, and Gerhard Stäbler.

His current projects include the folk-improv duo The Ciderhouse Rebellion, the Anglo-Irish group The Haar, and the gypsy klezmer Vagabond Duo.