Passion key to Edmonton man's accordion repair efforts

A west Edmonton man is using his passion for the accordion to assist other accordion players in Alberta and around the world.

Chris O’Donovan moved to Canada in 2011 from Ireland, with a deep love for the accordion, but a small problem: He had no one to help maintain it.

“I didn’t have any repairmen in Canada who could do the work for me, so I pretty much learned how to do it myself," he chuckled.

Not long after arriving in Canada, he found himself repairing other people’s accordions.

“Each accordion takes about eight hours to tune at a minimum, but there’s multiple factors involved like the age of the accordion and the quality of the internals.”

The reviews of O’Donovan’s new part time business have been overly positive.

“His work is very good, he’s very exacting. He’s precise in his work," said one of his loyal customers, Garry O’Brien.

O’Donovan receives a new accordion to repair around three times each month.

“He has people from different countries sending their instruments to him! People from the States, South America, from Europe here to Edmonton.” O’Brien continued.

O’Donovan credits first picking up an accordion to his late grandfather.

“I kind of feel responsible to keep the instruments going, to restore these vintage instruments and to give them a new voice again.”