The Main Squeeze

Wise reminds her that the concerts are in June.

"I might not be able to make it, because I'll be doing a play," Elise says. "It's about electricity," she explains. "Ben Franklin has to rap."

But a month later, on the night of the Washington Metropolitan Accordion Society's June concert, Elise shows up with her father, her body almost bent in half under the weight of her accordion backpack. More than 50 people -- accordionists and their family and friends -- fill the basement of Sleepy Hollow United Methodist Church in Falls Church. Nearly all the night's attendees have white or gray hair, and many of the men are wearing ties. Some are strapped into accordions and wander in and out of the room, warming up, as people begin to take their seats.

WMAS organizes semiannual concerts, workshops and visits by celebrity guest artists, such as Frank Marocco, a jazz accordionist who has written music for films. Wise is not playing tonight but will serve as emcee. He talks about the progress he's made in recruiting young accordionists, then scans the room until he spies a familiar curly brown head and invites Elise up to perform. She lugs her case to the front of the room, unzips it and hauls out her 48-bass instrument.

Before giving the floor to Elise, Wise tells the crowd proudly that the girl recently performed for a large audience at a Baltimore library. A murmur of surprise and smattering of applause greets this news.

"This is called 'Church in the Wildwood,'" Elise says, and plunges into the number. Although she nailed the song in her lesson with Wise, tonight it does not go well. About four phrases in, she stumbles over a note. She mutters "eck" in frustration but continues. She fumbles again and, with a professional's poise, corrects herself by stopping and starting over. But the same mistakes haunt the performance to the end. The 40-second number stretches to over a minute, as some of the audience members shift in their seats, crossing and uncrossing their legs in impatience.

When Elise finishes, Wise returns to the front of the room.

"That was very nice. Thank you, Elise," he says, giving her a pat on the back. He claps until the room joins him in a round of applause.

AT WASHINGTON'S GANGPLANK MARINA, the Wises turn down a narrow plank and see friends from WMAS waving from a 46-foot-long houseboat. Paul Aebersold, the boat's owner, sits on the top deck, playing a haunting German song on his accordion. From inside the boat's tiny kitchen wafts the aroma of Viennese goulash, spaetzle and red cabbage -- takeout from a German restaurant where Aebersold plays accordion on the weekends.

As the sun sets over the Potomac, a paddle-boat glowing with lights plows quietly by. The day's oppressive heat and humidity have dissipated, and everyone agrees it's a far more beautiful night than the last houseboat party, when someone had to hold an umbrella over Wise as he played.

Later in the evening, Wise climbs to the houseboat's upper deck with his accordion, pulls up a chair and begins to play "La Vie en Rose." Although Wise finds it difficult to articulate exactly why he loves the accordion, he always returns to the principle of tension and release in music. He says that how he chooses to express himself reflects his struggles throughout the day and that, "as the music comes to rest so, too, does the player."

"La Vie en Rose" can be an accordion cliche, but Wise's orchestration elevates it to a personal anthem. He slouches into his accordion, arms hugging it tight, eyes closed, chin tucked against the instrument's top, coaxing a symphony out of the cumber-some box. The bittersweet melody reveals itself slowly as Wise's right hand strolls down the keys, evoking strings, his fingers on the bass buttons summoning a piano's gentle percussion. While Wise rocks in his seat, the bellows gradually begin to voice a lone coronet that lifts the notes higher and higher until, at last, they break and retreat to quiet.