Accordions at the Proms? It might seem a stretch, but they push all the right buttons
Ksenija Sidorova, the face of a new generation of classical music performers, hopes to show the grace and beauty of the instrument at tomorrow’s Last Night celebration
The star guest invited to bring some pizzazz to the Last Night of the Proms can be many things. It can be a tenor belting out Puccini’s Nessun dorma, or a soprano trilling some Handel. It can be a virtuoso violinist or pianist dazzling us with Paganini caprices or Lisztian heroics. But an accordionist? It doesn’t seem likely. It’s an ungainly 30lb monster and just a bit too humble. A village wedding, fine; but the Royal Albert Hall? Oh, and also there’s no great music for the instrument.
Wrong on all counts, says the Latvian-born Ksenija Sidorova, 33. She’s become the new star accordionist, much touted by a classical music industry hungry for talent combined with youthful good looks. Having trained in London and lived there for 13 years, she’s now based in Madrid with her husband, but she’s constantly on the move from one grand concert venue or festival to another. Sidorova has the sort of virtuosity that is revelatory, in the proper sense of the word. She makes you aware that the accordion can be as lyrically graceful as a violin, and is also capable of producing bewitchingly strange, modernmusic sounds. It’s that rare quality that has persuaded several composers to write concertos for her. And she has absolutely no trouble looking glamorous with an accordion around her neck.
As for the suggestions that the instrument is too humble to be seen on a concert stage and has no decent music, Sidorova might get annoyed if she were not so smilingly eventempered. “I truly believe the accordion deserves its place on a serious classical stage,” she says. “It’s an instrument you can play at parties and weddings and also in the concert hall. It’s really remarkable how composers are attracted to it when they are looking for new sounds and new ways of expressing themselves. And it has the great advantage that it needs no accompaniment, it can create an entire sound world by itself. You can just go to the forest and play alone.”
Sidorova’s grandmother introduced her to the tradition of playing Latvian folk music on the accordion, which was her initial inspiration. She was raised in Riga, the capital of Latvia, where the old Soviet system of free music education to the highest level still survived. “The great thing about the network of state music schools is that they are accessible to absolutely everyone,” she says.
“That’s not the case in the UK, where often the lessons are quite expensive and parents have to pay.
“Many things about the old Soviet system were bad but that is definitely something good. It was very tough, I must say, but it equipped me to handle the more free, creative music education that I experienced when
I came to London to study at the
Royal Academy of
Music. That was so important because it helped me to find my own voice, which is the most important thing for any musician. So I had
‘It deserves its place on a serious classical stage. It’s an instrument you can play at parties, weddings and also in the concert hall’
the best of both worlds and I’m grateful for that.”
Sidorova knows the Proms well, and is thrilled at the prospect of playing at the Last Night. “It has been difficult to finalise the repertoire for the concert because of Covid, which created uncertainty about how many musicians we can have on stage. But nevertheless, I will definitely be playing some music by Astor Piazzolla,” she says, referring to the great Argentinian composer who revolutionised the tango in the 1950s and 1960s. Piazzolla’s preferred type of “squeeze box” was the South American bandoneon, which as Sidorova explains is quite different to her own. “The bandoneon sounds more mellow and less sharp than the accordion, and it’s much smaller. We can use many different combinations of reeds with a modern accordion, so when I play Piazzolla I try to put all thoughts of the bandoneon out of my head. I don’t try to imitate it. I think of the accordion as a different instrument, and try to bring something new to the music.”
The kerfuffle over Rule, Britannia! at last year’s Proms passed her by, and she’s baffled by the suggestion that the Proms are overly nationalistic. “I must say, it doesn’t seem that way to me. I think it is beautiful. I always admire how the English can create a wonderful feeling of ceremony – it’s very touching for me as a foreigner to see this. I remember when I was watching the closing ceremony of the London Olympics on TV at home in Riga with my mum, I started crying. My mother was quite worried, she said ‘What’s happening?’ And I said: ‘I never want to leave London, I just want to stay there!’”
Will she come back and live here one day? “We hope so, but of course it is not so easy now, after Brexit. I believe I may have to get a visa, which is a bit of a shock to me. I do hope that the Government can make this easier, because the music scene in England is so international, that is what makes it so attractive and I really hope it stays that way.”
Ksenija Sidorova plays at the Last Night of the Proms tomorrow (for tickets visit bbc.co.uk/promstickets). Watch live on BBC TV and Radio 3, or stream for 30 days on BBC iplayer