World Accordion Day
Next: May 6, 2027
Squeeze out a tune today.
The story
Where it comes from
World Accordion Day marks the day the accordion got its name. On 6 May 1829 Cyrill Demian, an organ and piano maker in Vienna of Armenian origin, filed a patent with his sons Karl and Guido for their 'newly invented instrument', which they called the Accordion: a small box with metal reeds and bellows, light enough to carry. The Confédération Internationale des Accordéonistes (CIA), founded in 1935, held the first World Accordion Day on 6 May 2009, the instrument's 180th birthday.
How it's celebrated
The CIA asks accordion associations, orchestras, performers and teachers everywhere to hold concerts and events on or around 6 May, and to register them on its website. For everyone else it is a good day to listen to some accordion music, or to dust off the one in the cupboard and play a few chords.
Did you know
- Each of the five keys on Demian's first accordion sounded two chords, one as the bellows were pulled and another as they were pushed.
- Demian's patent promised that even an amateur could play marches and melodies after a little practice, and that travellers would welcome so portable an instrument.
- The original patent is kept in the archive of the Technical University of Vienna, where it was rediscovered in 1988.
Coming up next
- Rabindranath Tagore's Birthday · May 7, 2027
- Parents' Day (Korea) · May 8, 2027
- World Red Cross and Red Crescent Day · May 8, 2027
- World Migratory Bird Day · May 8, 2027
- Mother's Day · May 9, 2027
- J. M. Barrie's Birthday · May 9, 2027