Directed by Roberta Cantow • Documentary • With Guy Klucevsek, William Schimmel, Pauline Oliveros • 2016 • 74 minutes

What if everything we thought we knew about the accordion were wrong? This film shatters the mistaken notions and tells the real story. Accordions have returned, not only with amusement, but with a beautiful, eloquent, haunting, and downright exciting vengeance!

With a focus on New York City artists, musicians and composers, Accordions Rising explores how appreciation for the music of the accordion has been regaining its footing as a vibrant and versatile instrument and is finally taking its rightful place. The resurgence of interest in accordion music has actually been occurring over the last 30-40 years.  Though many continue to see it as the stodgy instrument of a bygone era - and accordion jokes abound – this film sets the record straight! Accordions deliver a surprising range of styles, express the complete and complex range of human emotion, and reflect the diversity in our culture today.