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With More Than 500 Accordions On Display, This Small Town Museum In Connecticut Is A True Hidden Gem

Posted in Connecticut Museums, Small Towns June 14, 2023 by Lisa Sammons
There are plenty of great large, expansive museums in Connecticut that cover a variety of topics, or at least really broad topics. The Yale Center for British Art has more than 2,000 works of art spanning more than a century. Historic home museums like the Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum typically cover specific time periods, but have a variety of items on display documenting what life was like in that era. Places like that are great, but there’s something special about going to a museum with more of a specific focus. Sometimes, these places may sound a little wacky to the uninitiated – there’s a whole museum devoted to what?! – but they’re often quite interesting! I’ve found in my travels that some of these museums are often more educational and fascinating than even larger, more renowned sites that cover a broader array of topics. One such museum with a hyper-specific focus is the New England Accordion Connection and Museum Company in Canaan, CT. This unique accordion museum in Connecticut is a great day trip. Continue...

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Jerry Homolka produced this video interview and it captures the essence of our mission here at NEACMC. Thank you Jerry & Enjoy Everyone!!

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Read reviewer/author Charles Cassady’s interview with Paul from Kirkus Reviews:

Lavishly Illustrated Essays on Accordion Culture Find Grace Notes

I’ve told that story about a hundred times. It still gives me goosebumps,” Angelo Paul Ramunni says, referring to the serendipity that led him to create an accordion-based museum in his home in Canaan, Connecticut—and, by extension, his lavishly illustrated book, Accordion Stories From the Heart.

The coffee-table–friendly volume relates many a tale with its full-page photos of accordions in all their hand-crafted, mother-of-pearl–inlay glory, which are “as intricately exquisite as any prized violin or piano,” as Kirkus’ review describes them. One story is about a little Hohner that succored its Russian owner through grim years of totalitarianism in the Soviet Union. Another tells of a Karpek “square box” in Chicago that earned its player command performances before Al Capone. A third relates the acquisition of a Detroit-made 1920s accordion, lovingly, proudly, and painstakingly refurbished by a blind man.  Read Full Interview Here

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