Accordion Stories from the Heart comprises stories Angelo Paul Ramunni has gathered over the course of an unexpected journey collecting used accordions. “They are precious stories,” Ramunni writes in the introduction, “because they are about the people who made them, played them, owned them, and listened to them being played.”
As a successful CPA, Ramunni had no interest in the accordion he played as a boy. Until one morning in 2008 when he awoke with a sudden and “inexplicable urge to play again.” A couple of phone calls and a few hours later, he found himself at the home of a nearby collector. Among the many accordions, Ramunni noticed several concertinas in various stages of disrepair. The collector informed him they had been in Nazi concentration camps. Ramunni was struck by this. What stories they could tell.
Thus began Ramunni’s journey. He took out ads in local papers and began buying used accordions. He soon discovered that every seller had a story. So he collected those too.
In 2011 he opened The New England Accordion Connection & Museum Company in Canaan, Connecticut, as a place to house and promote the growing collection. In 2018, he assembled the best of these stories as Accordion Stories from the Heart.
The reader’s first impression is of the vivid color photographs, the sheer visual impact of the accordions themselves. Diverse and unalike, what they share is an awe inspiring display of craftsmanship. As Ramunni notes, the people who made these instruments must have loved them.
The stories themselves — ever poignant, ranging from funny to frightening — are threaded together by the mystic power of the accordion.
There are stories of war — mustard gas creeping its way into the bellows down in the trenches. There are stories of peace — Confederate and Union soldiers swapping flutina songs on the wind across the river.
There are humorous stories of death. There are inspirational stories of rebirth.
There are harrowing stories of humanity — A young Jewish woman escaping Bosnia on the eve of Nazi occupation, finagling her way onto an all-night train. She didn’t have a ticket, but she had her accordion, which the conductor happened to love. “Imagine,” this woman noted, “an accordion, of all things, saving one’s life.”
That sentiment is not difficult for Ramunni to imagine, as he has seen firsthand, repeatedly, the power of the accordion as a kind of portal of goodness. The people he has encountered on his journey buying accordions, many of them grieving; the visitors to his museum, every one of them moved in some way; and, now, the readers of his book, have all been positively affected by this proximity to the accordion.
Whether you play or simply admire accordion music — or neither — Accordion Stories from the Heart will force you to reassess how you feel about the accordion and the people who make music with this extraordinary, perhaps enchanted, instrument.
“The accordion tells a story about us as a people,” Ramunni writes, “If you listen carefully as you read these stories, you will hear it speak to you.”
Matt Powell is a writer and musician. His work explores the interconnectivity of all music and the people who create or listen. His writing has been featured in several publications, including Variety, No Depression, Emmys.com, and Angels Flight—Literary West. Learn more at www.theemattpowell.com
Angelo Paul Ramunni, Director
The New England Accordion Connection & Museum Co.
P O Box 943….75 Main St, North Canaan, CT 06018 / www.neacmc.com / 1-860-833-1374 (cell)
- Books written by Angelo Paul Ramunni
- (All books are available on Amazon.com)
- “Pocket Cross Miracles, Stories of Hope, Healing and Encouragement”
- “God Loves U-Turns, Our Last Chance to Make it Right“
- “Rich Catholic, Poor Catholic, The Road to Grace”
- “Left Turn Right Turn, Our Last Chance to Make it Right“
- “Accordion Stories from the Heart”
Also go here: www.stonepocketcross.com