Ba\u0161i\u0107 said she first began learning the bellows-driven instrument aged nine. <\/p>\n
She said: “My roots are that my family are from the former Yugoslavia, from Serbia, where the accordion is the number one instrument and leads the orchestras. <\/p>\n
“I’ve always had a passion and a love for it.<\/p>\n
“So I actually learnt to play the accordion in this country, did all my grades, etc. <\/p>\n
“Then I really wanted to do something that involved others who loved it as much as I do.”<\/p>\n
She began teaching others to play with her kitchen “classroom” while she juggled raising children, doing a degree and running a business. <\/p>\n
The band has grown from the original five to 38 members and also raises tens of thousands of pounds for charity through its fundraising concerts.<\/p>\n
Ba\u0161i\u0107 is now its musical director. <\/p>\n
She said: “We all say it’s more than the music, it’s become like an extended family and people look out for one another. <\/p>\n
“We have a very active WhatsApp group.<\/p>\n
“It’s just brilliant to be part of something that makes people happy.”<\/p>\n
The musician said the group would “really like” to win the award which is voted for by the public.<\/p>\n
“We want to put the accordion on the national map as an instrument that’s not recognized as much as it should be, that’s where we’re coming from with it.” <\/p>\n
The Royal Philharmonic Society is a London-based charity set up in 1813 to celebrate and promote classical music.<\/p>\n
Voting for the RPS Inspiration Award is open until 11am on Monday, 2 February.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ba\u0161i\u0107 said she first began learning the bellows-driven instrument aged nine. She said: “My roots are that my…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423411,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,341],"class_list":{"0":"post-423410","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}