SqueezeFest LA

The Los Angeles Accordion Festival proudly presents SqueezeFest LA -- an exciting evening of freshly squeezed sounds as accordion bands Vagabond Opera, Conjunto Los Pochos and Feufollet take you on a musical journey from 1920s Paris to the streets of old Mexico and the bayous of Louisiana.

Based in the Pacific Northwest, yet encompassing the world, Vagabond Opera delivers passionate offerings of Bohemian cabaret. Paris hot Jazz, Yiddish Theater, Tangos, Ukrainian folk-punk ballads, and vigorous originals invoke a world of Riverboat gambling Queens, Turkish Belly dance, and the enigmatic Marlene Dietrich. Weaving elements of Kurt Weil, Duke Ellington and Edith Piaf with absurdist flair, theatrics and an old world mood, Vagabond Opera presents the new wave of opera--lusty (trained) voices singing in 11 languages, with accordion, saxophones, bass, percussion, dance, and costumes, all played with exuberance, skill and a gritty Vagabond edge. This is Opera liberated and reinvented for the rest of us.

Conjunto Los Pochos is a traditionally-based, Tex-Mex conjunto. We play dance music including boleros, polkas, waltzes and cumbias.

Formed in 1995 when accordionist/singer Chris Stafford was 8 and fiddler Chris Segura was 11, Feufollet quickly became known as one of the most exciting Cajun bands in Acadiana, not because of their youth but because of their obvious musical ability and the vivacity with which they approached the traditional music of the area. In the eight years since Feufollet has been performing, they have built upon a regional popularity, becoming an attraction at folk festivals and performance venues not only in the South, but throughout the United States and French Canada.