2022 GUESTS

In addition to our esteemed audience members and our concert performer and masterclass instructor Nikolay Bine, we are pleased to welcome two featured guests at this year's Fest. 

MARTIN HERGT - ACCORDION SALES + REPAIRS​

Owner of accordion specialty shop Tempo Trend in Victoria (established over 60 years ago). Accordionist and accordion repairman extraordinaire.

Martin will be on site at the Fest for accordion sales, tune-ups, and repairs.

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Tempo Trend Music was established by Martin’s father 60 years ago in Victoria. He was a watchmaker by trade and always had a love for accordions. When Martin’s father was working in Sechelt in 1960, he was slowly introduced to the accordion business by a person who was in touch with the Canadian Accordions Institute. This person had a love for accordions and offered Martin's father Vancouver Island as the territory to deal with the Canadian Accordions Institute. So Martin’s father started his accordion business while still working as a watchmaker.

This was the beginning of Tempo Trend Music and Martin and his father, Karl, built it up from there. They moved into the current location in 1967. Martin started working here as a teen and has been working in the business for over  45 years. 

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What started as a business that focused on accordion sales expanded over the years to include teaching accordion lessons. 

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Tempo Trend's mission:

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We aim to help people with all kinds of musical needs. We are a full end-to-end store making music accessible to everyone.

BRUCE TRIGGS - AUTHOR & RADIO HOST​

Book author, host of the Accordion Noir radio show, creator of the successful proposal for the accordion emoji.

At the Fest, Bruce will facilitate a presentation and Q&A session called Accordion Revolution: A People’s History of the Accordion.

Bruce Triggs is the author of Accordion Revolution: a People’s History of the Accordion in North America from the Industrial Revolution to Rock ’n’ Roll (2019).

He hosts the Accordion Noir Radio show on Co-op Radio in Vancouver, BC (since 2006), and has volunteered at the Accordion Noir Festival every year welcoming folk, experimental, classical, and punk rock squeezebox from around the world. He also wrote the successful proposal for the #AccordionEmoji, now on billions of devices worldwide.