In another coup for artistic director and flautist Ana de La Vega, accordion virtuoso James Crabb and British violinist Anthony Marwood will take the stage at Snow Concert Hall to showcase an interesting combination of instruments. 

When Crabb phones me from Sydney, he’s just back home from a stint teaching and playing at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen, where the Dundee-born musician was initially trained and where he has been professor of classical accordion since 1995.

“I spent 25 years in Denmark studying and teaching,” he says. He is also part of a duo with his fellow-accordionist Geir Draugsvoll, with whom he transcribed and recorded Stravinsky’s Petrushka and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition in 1996.

For the past 12 years, he’s been performing in a duo with Marwood, one of Britain’s most eminent violinists, a collaboration in which Marwood effectively acts as the soloist and Crabb as the whole orchestra.

That involves mighty feats of transcription and in the concert we’re about to see, they’ll be playing – with permission of course – Crabb’s transcription of contemporary British composer Thomas Adès’ Märchentänze (“Dances from Fairytale”) in a new arrangement.

Then there will be the perennially popular The Lark Ascending by Vaughan Williams, normally a showpiece for violin but there, Crabb says, revealing “a slightly different sound world that gives a more intimate feeling with a bit of mystery and a bit of romance where the accordion becomes a mini-orchestra.”

Several works by Astor Piazzolla, in new arrangements by Crabb, speak to his well-known fondness for the works of the Argentine composer, in which he effectively replicates the biting sounds of the bandoneon, the closely-related instrument of which Piazzolla was an exponent.

“Piazzolla is a great way for an accordionist to get into the classical music world,” he says. “It’s music I really enjoy playing, it allows me to use the accordion as an expressive kind of instrument – it’s similar to people playing lute music on the guitar, a natural progression.”

One thing Crabb is adamant about is that he and Marwood only play music they “really, really love to play.” 

This is a luxury both can afford at this stage of their respective careers, one, he says, that allows him to “show the accordion as a chamber organ, as a keyboard and as a wind instrument”.

He is particularly excited about performing Lament, the middle part of Seavaigers, by Britain’s Sally Beamish.

Oh yes, there’s a bit of Bach too, Sonata no.3 in E-Major BWV 1016, arranged by Crabb for accordion and violin.

“We’ll reinterpret the harpsichord, giving it new colour,” he enthuses.

James Crabb and Anthony Marwood at Snow Concert Hall, September 25.