Composer Nina Shekhar on Writing an Accordion Concerto

By Eric Dundon

An accordion is not usually the first instrument thought of in a classical concert setting. The instrument, invented in the 1820s and often associated with the common people, has limited repertoire in the library of symphonic music. On January 10-11, 2025, the SLSO will broaden the music for this unique instrument with the world premiere of Nina Shekhar’s Accordion Concerto.

Featuring soloist Hanzhi Wang and led by conductor Daniela Candillari, this piece—which the SLSO commissioned—draws upon Shekhar’s Indian culture, along with the cultures represented in accordion music around the world. Shekhar shares insights into the piece and its creation.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

Nina Shekhar: In many ways, my music is like my diary.  Through the process of composing, I often learn a lot about myself and work through my past experiences. Composing also acts as my armor; music often awakens a bravery within me that enables me to express emotions and vulnerabilities that I would otherwise be too shy or afraid to share in my everyday life. Music also allows me to look beyond myself and explore the intersection between me and my environment. What are the societal forces that shape who I am, and how do I fit into our cultural fabric?  As composers, we have a unique opportunity to collaborate with many different identities—the performers’, the audience’s, and our own.  Our music is really a product of those intersecting identities that shape how it’s played and heard. 

I have never previously written for the accordion, so I was quite nervous to write for the instrument, especially as a concerto soloist!  But I have seen the accordion performed in a lot of different contexts and have enjoyed listening to its variety. It’s one of those rare instruments that traverses so many genres. The accordion is a vital part of many folk traditions, including European polka and klezmer music, Egyptian baladi, Brazilian baiao, Korean trot, and Kenyan mwomboko dance music.  Writing this concerto was an exciting opportunity to learn more about this amazing instrument and allow its unique sound world and extensive technical capability to enrich my own musical vocabulary. I have always loved the sound of the accordion. To me the closest analogue is the sound of the harmonium, a hand-pumped reed organ often used in Indian classical traditions. I love the reedy richness of the instrument. In learning more about the accordion, I realized that it is an incredibly versatile instrument, having a lot of timbral expressivity, a large range, and the capability to handle technical virtuosity.

Because I was inspired by the similarities between the accordion and the harmonium, I chose to loosely structure the first half of the concerto like an alap, a slower meditative opening section often used in Hindustani classical music to initially present a raag, or scalar pattern that the composition is based on. The first half of the piece patiently develops a short three-note motive, making room for silence. The accordion’s own resonance is echoed through the orchestra by overlapping overtones from the harmonic series. The piece also uses microtones and different kinds of pitch bending inflections, both in the orchestra parts and the accordion.  The result is a sonic blur connecting soloist and orchestra. Following an expressive cadenza, the accordion showcases its rhythmic virtuosity in the second half of the piece, using techniques like bellow shakes and cluster chords.

I’m extremely grateful to soloist Hanzhi Wang for her guidance throughout writing this piece. Her musical virtuosity has deeply inspired me, and she is a wonderful ambassador for the instrument in our field. I loved getting this chance to collaborate with such a thoughtful and expressive performer. Because I didn’t have much prior experience with the accordion, she initially sent me some handbooks and repertoire examples on how to write for the instrument.  As I began writing the piece, I sent her sketches to workshop, and after the piece was completed, we met to see if there were any other revisions that needed to be made to make it more playable for the instrument. 

The term “concerto” has a loaded connotation. There are so many expectations regarding the hierarchy between soloist and orchestra. Because the accordion is an unconventional soloist for a typical concerto, it made it a little easier for me to feel the strength to break some of those traditions. The piece blurs some of those standard hierarchical relationships.  Sometimes there is a “follow the leader” relationship between the accordion and orchestra, but other times the accordion is fitting in within the texture of the orchestra to create a dense chordal blur. Inspired by Hindustani classical music, this piece is very patient, especially in the first half. As I have grown as a composer and human, I have grown more patient, allowing a motive to develop over a longer period of time. The use of microtones is also unusual for a traditional orchestra setting. Using microtones, I create these microtonal inflections that almost feel like wails. The piece has these very expressive, haunting wail effects in both the orchestra and in the accordion. The piece plays with expectation, sometimes resembling standard concerto form and other times deviating from it.

Eric Dundon is the SLSO’s Public Relations Director.