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Summary

An Evening of Accordion & Strings

Presented by Johnny Young and Buz Wilburn of Happy Music Center

Doors open at 6:30 PM | Music begins at 7:00 PM

Join us for an unforgettable evening celebrating the astonishing range of the accordion, paired with world-class strings and vocals, featuring four extraordinary acts spanning generations and genres.

Peter Swanson, an accordion prodigy who found his calling watching his father’s Celtic band, now performs alongside them as a member of Wrenwood Sessions. Playing a KORG Fisa Suprema digital accordion, Peter has expanded into jazz, earning recognition as a multi-year competitor and scholarship winner at the Cotati Accordion Festival. When he’s not performing or attending dual-enrollment college courses and the Bakersfield Jazz Workshop, Peter can be found in the sky as a student glider pilot in Tehachapi, California.

The Noel–Hubbard Duo brings decades of professional artistry to the stage. Richard Noel is an innovative digital accordionist whose custom programming lets him glide across nearly any musical style; his YouTube channel, “BakersfieldAccordion,” has drawn more than ten million views. Janice Hubbard spent 35 years touring internationally with the acclaimed children’s music group Parachute Express, lending the duo her expressive vocals and rhythmic percussion. Based in Ventura, the two perform swing, rock, folk, Country, Latin, and music from around the world.

Leah Zeger and Cory Pesaturo close the evening with a dazzling cross-genre set. Pesaturo is a three-time world champion of the accordion — the only person to win world titles in acoustic, digital, and jazz accordion — and a Guinness World Record holder for the longest accordion marathon performance. Zeger, a Houston-born violinist, vocalist, and songwriter, built her career from the Austin Symphony to the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, performing alongside artists including Miley Cyrus, Willie Nelson, and Hans Zimmer. Together they weave an acoustic-electric palette through jazz standards, Roma-influenced swing, tango, klezmer, and reimagined film-score themes, deconstructed and rebuilt in real time.

From rising young talent to internationally celebrated virtuosos, this program showcases the accordion’s astonishing versatility in one unforgettable night.