Richard Galliano

Accordionist/composer Richard Galliano has done for French musette what friend Astor Piazzolla did for tango. Across dozens of recordings and hundreds of credits, he's expanded musette's emotional and harmonic possibilities by blurring lines between classical, jazz, free improv, new music, and folk. Spleen, his 1985 acclaimed debut, won international notice. 1995's Laurita placed his compositions alongside Piazzolla's, Serge Gainsbourg's, and Hermeto Pascoal's. 2007's If You Love Me with Gary Burton was a charting best-seller. 2015's Vie en Rose, in collaboration with jazz guitarist Sylvain Luc, was chosen by French critics as one of the best albums of the year. 2023's Madreperla with the South Czech Philharmonic offered his long-form compositions. 2024's Around Gershwin found him paying tribute to the composer alongside works by Sergei Rachmaninoff, Claude Debussy, and Maurice Ravel, among others.