About Henri:
Henri Ducharme represents a new generation exploring the accordion’s possibilities in modern and classical music. Recent performances include Four Saints in Three Acts with the Mark Morris Dance Company, Mother Courage with the Shotgun Players, and Adventures Underground with the San Francisco Symphony. Henri studied classical accordion beginning at age five. As an adult, he has directed the music for Eastern European folk ballet companies, served as music director in local churches, and taught music in local Waldorf elementary schools. He currently directs two accordion ensembles, teaches accordion privately, and teaches numerous workshops and classes including the Punk Rock Accordion Workshop.

Listen to AccordionWork's performance of Wave Hill by Guy Klucevsek:

About Henri's Accordion:
Henri plays a concert Bugari accordion unusual in several respects. It has five sets of hand made reeds on the right hand – a Bassoon reed, three Clarinets, and a Piccolo – and a total of 26 switches, for an enormous range of tone color. Besides having switches located conventionally on the grill, five of the switches are duplicated atop the keyboard as chin switches, so that the performer does not have to use his hands to change those reeds. The Bassoon and one Clarinet reed are housed in tone chambers, which creates an especially rich sound.

The right hand has an extended keyboard, with more notes than the conventional 41. It goes down to a low “E” and up to a high “C”.

The bass side has eight sets of reeds controlled by twelve switches. (In the photograph you see only six bass switches; there is also a toggle switch that doubles the effect of these six.)

This accordion is a “converter bass” meaning that it plays two completely different bass systems – the conventional Stradella (bass, counterbass, and major, minor, seventh, and diminished chords) but also the free-bass system, in which all bass buttons play individual notes rather than preset chords. This, combined with reed changes, gives a seven-octave range on the left, and allows the accordion to play most music written for piano. Invented in Germany after World War II, the free-bass accordion has become the standard for classical accordionists.

Finally, this accordion has an extended bellows – eighteen folds instead of the usual seventeen. The bellows compression is extraordinary: playing a middle C on a single Clarinet reed at mezzo-piano, one can play for 110 seconds before reaching the limit of the bellows.