Randy Stein

If you enjoy the English Concertina as well as jazz and folk music,and are in or around the DC Metro area, I will be performing and doing workshops in the coming month: Friday June 7th 6:00-6:30: Ein Lanu Z'man in a Pre-Kabbalat Shabbat Concert. Free to the public. At Agudas Achim Congregation (2908 Valley Drive, Alexandria, VA 22302) Sunday June 16th 6:00-8:00: Performing with Mid-Atlantic Swing, a gypsy jazz group, at a house concert https://www.facebook.com/events/458769888216553/?ti=ia Friday June 21st: DC Farmers Market, 12th & Independance ST NW from 11:00 - 1:00. Gypsy Jazz with the amazing Charlie Schueller on accordion Saturday June 22nd 1:00-3:00: Introduction to Playing the Concertina with Jim Besser. At the School of Musical Traditions in Rockville, MD. https://hmtrad.com/…/sat-june-22-introduction-to-concertina… Friday June 28th 11:00-1:00: DC Farmers Market. 12th & Independance St NW. My Folk Duo - 2Many Buttons, with Jim Besser on the Anglo Concertina Saturday July 6th 7:00-9:00: DC Ambiance in Concert, An Evening of Gypsy Jazz. The Carroll Cafe at Seekers Church, 276 Carroll St NW, Takoma Park, MD

"Boris Matusewitch (1918-1978) was a successful English concertinist in the United States. The history of the Matusewitch’s and their music is detailed in a special 2015 supplement to Concertina World written by Boris’s son, Eric Matusewitch (CW 463, September 2015). In addition to being a well-known performer, Boris taught concertina in his New York City music studio for over 20 years. Boris arranged many famous tunes specifically for the English concertina, writing the arrangements out by hand to give his students more classical and contemporary music to play. Many of these arrangements have been collected by Boris’s son, Eric, and one of Boris’s former students, Randy Stein (moi), a well known concertinist in the Washington, DC, area. Eric and Randy are currently working with Mary Roth and Laura Wu to make Boris’s arrangements available to concertina players and to find a permanent archival home for Boris Matusewitch’s music arrangements. Mary is an English concertina player, a member of JTD, and a professor at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, and Laura is an accordionist and student at Lafayette. The project involves indexing the music, digital scanning the arrangements, researching potential archival homes for the physical copies of the music, and making applications to those archives."* The scans of some of this music are now available to the public. Only those pieces of music that are currently in the public domain are accessable. Copyrighted songs are currently unavailable. There are still many of Boris' manuscripts yet to be scanned and made accessible but here is what is available to date. Mary is also working with the ICA to make them available via their website as well. https://sites.lafayette.edu/boris-matusewitch/ On a personal note I want to thank Mary and Laura for their hard work and dedication to seeing this to become a reality. I had the gift of studying with both Boris and his brother Sergei. The musicianship and breadth of knowledge and legacy of Boris is still uncompared by any concertina player I have heard to date. As we make this music available, I hope this inspires the next generation of English Concertina players. *excerpt from upcoming JTD Newsletter

Looking for something to do in the Washington, DC Metro area on May 18th in the afternoon that’s cool, fun, and relatively close to being free? Come here my Gypsy Jazz Group, DC Ambiance perform at DC’s first Gypsy Jazz Summit. THE VENUE "Singer's Glen": You Are Welcome to Bring Your Lawn Chair!

Jardin D'Hiver by Henri Salvador. Performed by the gypsy jazz group, DC Ambiance https://soundcloud.com/user827948939/jardin-dhiver-1

Ein Lanu Z'man is my 10 piece Jewish Folk Music Group. Through the years there have been different members and musical configurations. This tune, Jerusalem of Gold (Yerushalayim Shel Zahav) is a traditional folk tune by Naomi Shemer. Special guest is 11 year old Dassi Deinstfrey on the viola. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TECGwCIkM3Q&fbclid=IwAR0bxckLsVRAUVoSFmQKR53j1BmEZ65_yj4YRbGu3u2pk-KAjm1akUr1o5Y

Despite popular demand here is another tune from Jim Besser and me as 2ManyButtons duo. Again I apologize for the missed appropriated notes. Just too many buttons. Xotes Romanes is part half gypsy, half klezmer, half dance tune. Jim is playing his C/G Lachenal/Dipper 30 button Anglo. This is from a rehearsal last Sunday. https://soundcloud.com/concertinist/xotes-romanes-2manybuttons

Jim Besser and I have been playing together now for close to a decade finding ways to blend his amazing talent on the Anglo with me on the EC. We recently regrouped back into playing as a duo with our new endeavor, 2ManyButtons. Jim is playing a Morse ESB baritone C/G Anglo. I am playing a 1937 Wheatstone 4 octave. This is from a recent rehearsal and I excuse any misdirected notes....to many fingers on too many buttons. https://soundcloud.com/concertinist/nadiejda-2manybuttons

Check out my bands new website: www.dcambiance.com

Here is my performance of Edith Piaf's Padam Padam*. Performed at the Saturday evening concert at this years Northeast Squeeze-in. *Padam, padam..." is a song originally released in 1951 by Édith Piaf. It was written for her by Henri Contet (lyrics) and Norbert Glanzberg (music)

Thought I'd post a photo of the weekend. Great time

Hoping to have an EP by March

Thank you Don. That is quite helpful. r