Prick up your ears
The expanded 4th Thuringian Accordion Days, featuring the Instrument of the Year 2026
The Weimar Music University invites you to the 4th Thuringian Accordion Days. This year, the joint project between the university and the Thuringian Regional Association of the German Accordion Teachers’ Association (DALV) has been expanded to two days: Participants from all over Thuringia will gather on Saturday, June 6, and Sunday, June 7, in the Jenny-Fleischer-Alt-Saal at the Beethovenhaus Belvedere.
The fourth edition of the state gathering will feature special composition commissions dedicated to the Instrument of the Year 2026—the accordion. The program includes a welcome concert by the students on Saturday, June 6, at 10:00 a.m., followed by a panel discussion with composers Luka Juhart and Uroš Rojko. These two musicians were commissioned to compose a “progressively designed anthology for the younger generation,” which “will receive its world premiere in collaboration between the University of Music and Thuringian music schools,” says Weimar accordion professor Claudia Buder.
Luka Juhart and Uroš Rojko will then be available for lessons and observation sessions before their composition commissions are officially presented in the afternoon. The first Accordion Day concludes at 5:30 p.m. with a final concert by the students. This will be followed by a separate workshop on the composition commissions on Sunday, June 7, from 10:00 a.m. to approximately 1:00 p.m., again in the Jenny-Fleischer-Alt-Saal.
“The accordion is characterized by diversity and is therefore predestined to have a similar effect,” says Prof. Claudia Buder, who serves as artistic director of the Accordion Days together with accordionist and educator Stephan Bahr (DALV). At the 2024 Weimar Master Classes, the Slovenian multi-talented artists Luka Juhart and Uroš Rojko captivated audiences on every level: They presented the accordion in combination with the clarinet at the highest artistic level—instrumentally, compositionally, and pedagogically. “This is where we pick up,” says Claudia Buder.
The accordion, still a relatively young instrument in terms of music history, can now boast a remarkable diversity of literature in terms of demanding compositions. However, the options are limited when it comes to high-quality pedagogical literature by major composers—such as Johann Sebastian Bach, Béla Bartók, and Sofia Gubaidulina, who have left their treasures for the youngest learners. “With the Corona project ‘Georg Katzer – Young Music for Accordion,’ the Weimar University of Music has already achieved something unique and, at the same time, valuable in this regard,” says Buder.
[2 June 2026]