President's Message

Happy New Year!

I'm excited and honored to serve the Rose City Accordion Club as president starting January 1, 2026.

My primary task is to ensure that we will continue to gather together to share our joy and love for the accordion. We'll continue to meet every 3rd Saturday of the month at the Milwaukie Public Safety Building. I hope to see you there!

As I have grown more acquainted with members of our club, I am encouraged by how supportive, encouraging, and joyful we are toward one another. I have seen so much personal growth in myself and others as we have learned better ways to play together, adopt technology like ForScore and MuseScore, welcomed accordionists of all skill levels, and stretched our individual skills through dedicated practice and accordion lessons.

It has also been my joy to go out and listen to the professional musicians in our club! I want to support our professionals, as they are our primary ambassadors of the accordion to the public.

As we start this new year, I encourage you to play, listen, learn, and share accordion music. Which of course you do, because that's why we are here. I'll be there to encourage you, applaud you, learn from you, teach you, laugh with you, and play with you.

May your 2026 be full of accordions, accordion players, and the joy that follows.

Amber Matz

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!  Here’s hoping your holiday season is a happy one.  

This will be my last newsletter, so there’s a twinge of sadness as I write this. However, our new leadership will continue to provide you with a lot of accordion information. You will find local happenings as well as things happening away from our area. 

The December 20th meeting was the annual Christmas Party. It was catered and funded by RCAC members who played out representing the club.  Delette Huffman and Don Devlaeminck picked up the food from Ohana Restaurant. It was delicious! 

The members gathered around holiday tables complete with seasonal tablecloths. After eating, the music circle was led by Amber Matz (President-elect). Amber chose 4 Christmas songs from Palmer-Hughes Christmas book for us to play:  Silent Night, We Three Kings, What Child is This? and O Little Town of Bethlehem. Palmer-Hughes suggested playing only treble notes for these songs (no basses). It was beautiful. Amber recorded “Silent Night” on video. You can view it at: https://youtube.com/shorts/fg1rQqn4aKg

After music circle, a short business meeting was held. Announcements are on the page with the meeting summary followed by individual playing. During the individual playing there were some quartets and duets. A nice variety of musical talent.  

Thank you to all members for the gift cards, flowers and lovely messages on the cards. You have all been very supportive and encouraging. As I reflect on my four years as President there are a few things I want to share with you:

1.  An important goal for me was to make sure all club members felt valued and supported regardless of accordion skill level. I witnessed the support and encouragement given to players as they performed at club. It’s more than playing the accordion—it’s friends encouraging each other to be the best we can be.

2). We moved forward in the use of technology by learning to use ForScore and MuseScore. ForScore enabled us to ditch the binders full of paper music (saving trees!). This was a huge learning curve but thanks to good teachers like Bobbie Ferrero and Delette Huffman, we learned it and now are using it. 

3). The groups that got together to play for different venues gave us the opportunity to learn new songs plus successfully play together as a group. Learning the format of AA, B, CC,AA, etc. was a big learning curve for many of us. Again we had a good teacher in Coreen Bergholm. A side benefit from these group playing events was the donations that went to the club which enabled catered meals for the summer picnic and Christmas party. A few of these playouts were: the Scandanavian Festival in Astoria, Hope Village Senior Living Facility and the Estacada Oktoberfest.  

Many, many thanks to all of you. Happy Holidays!  

Fran Maddox