Musician Don Sommerfeld from California.

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Musician Don Sommerfeld poses with his accordion and his lederhosen in his Lodi home. Sommerfeld said
his band performs at two or three Octoberfests a week during October. Two versions of his band will be
at the Lodi Octoberfest.

Of all the unusual facts Don Sommerfeld knows about the accordion, this may be the one that surprises
people the most: The instrument so closely associated with German polka music was invented in China.
But that's only the beginning of what Sommerfeld knows about the portable folding keyboards. He has
about 30 accordions all together. Sommerfeld collects the instruments. He repairs them. And he even built
one for a friend once. And, of course he plays them.

Sommerfeld will appear with two different versions of his band at the third annual Lodi Octoberfest.
It will be the first appearance at the Lodi Octoberfest for Sommerfeld, who moved here in 1962.
The reason Sommerfeld hasn't performed at Lodi's version of the traditional German harvest celebration
is that he's usually busy playing similar festivals throughout the state.

Sommerfeld is originally from Gackle, N.D. - town that he described as two-thirds German and one-third
Finnish. He was a trumpet player first and began playing accordion in 1954.

"I worked my first 2-1/2 years of college playing the trumpet. Then I came to California and did another
2-1/2 of college playing the accordion," Sommerfeld said. "When I came here, nobody was looking for
trumpet players. Or, they weren't looking for me."

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Source / Quelle: Lodi News-Sentinel, Lodi, California, October 16, 1998.
Reprinted with permission of the Lodi News-Sentinel.