Dallas College and I established a fund in memory of my late husband, Gregory Fainshtein, and my late student, Elijah Clements, to support students at the Dallas College-Northlake campus who are studying the accordion. All funds collected will go towards the Fainshtein Memorial Accordion Fund, which will allow the Northlake campus at Dallas College to purchase quality accordions for students and provide scholarship money for students studying accordion. Donations will also be used to bring guest accordion artists to Dallas College each year to present a charitable recital for the fund.
We opened the Fainshtein Memorial Accordion Fund with two concerts in early 2025. Guest artists who donated their time included Dr. Lucas Kaspar, an Arkansas State University professor of trombone. Each concert featured trombone and bayan duets. The proceeds from ticket sales and donations were the first funds for the Fainshtein Memorial Accordion Fund.
The photo at the left is one of the last photos of Gregory and Elijah together. You can see how much joy they had in each other and in playing bayan. The universe is blessed with their memories. The joy on their faces is precisely the joy that Gregory and I wanted to share with students during our lives. Now I continue to spread this without him.
The photo below is of Gregory, Elijah, me and another one of my students, Peter, at the National Accordion Convention in March, 2018, helping to conduct a workshop by demonstrating what Gregory and I were saying.
Gregory Fainshtein was born in Minsk, Belarus and started to play Bayan at the age of 8 in music school. In 1978 he was accepted to the Minsk Music College at the age of 15, where he studied Bayan (button accordion). I was also a student at this music college and viewed him as a competitor. However, in 1980 at the age of 17, Gregory suggested that we should form an Accordion Duo. From that point on we were no longer competitors but rather collaborators. At the age of 19, he won the Region State Competition in Accordion. Gregory and I finished Music College with honors and went on to study at the Academy of Music, which is the premier musical academy in Belarus. During all those years, we continued to perform in different venues in Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, and even Germany. Eventually, we were married in 1986. From 1991-2003 we lived in Israel where we had a TV appearance in 1992, and we performed for the President of Israel.
We worked with Omanut Le Am, the Israeli state organization for musicians, and gave many concerts as an accordion duo. Thanks to our concerts, we were able to visit, and came to love, many Israeli towns and cities. We moved to Plano, TX with our children, in 2003. Gregory was a huge help in organizing my accordion school “Musical Expressions”. He also arranged numerous pieces for our accordion duo and the Fainshtein Accordion Ensemble. We were active members of the Accordion Teachers Guild-International and performed at the ATG conventions, the National Accordion Convention, and the Las Vegas Accordion Convention. We performed together in many different states and also presented a TedTalk, held at Dallas College-Mountain View.
Elijah Clements was born in December, 2002, in Little Elm, TX. His interest in accordions started at a very young age when he saw the accordion on a children's TV show. He begged his father to let him learn the accordion. Elijah started studying accordion with me at the age of 12, when he did not know how to even hold the accordion. He began with the piano accordion. He grew to be a very accomplished accordionist. He was the champion in the Polka Category at the Big Squeeze Contest in 2019. After this success, Elijah began playing the button accordion (bayan). In 2023 he was the national accordion champion for the Senior Virtuoso Entertainment division at the Accordionists & Teachers Guild International Festival, playing the bayan. Elijah looked up to Gregory in so many ways, even purchasing a bayan made by the same manufacturer as Gregory's bayan. He also began to learn the Russian language and how to cook Belarussian food. In July 2024, Elijah competed at the World Cup International Competition held during the ATG convention and won fourth place out of a field of international players. Elijah accompanied me to Italy in September 2024, where we visited a number of accordion factories and made wonderful friends and connections. I achieved my dream of purchasing a new accordion there, and Elijah brought it back to the U.S. for me. Unfortunately, Elijah passed away a few days before his 22nd birthday in 2024. Though Elijah left us at such a young age, he made a big impact on the world of music. Many people thought he was a rising star in the world of the bayan. And, he would often say that “Accordion is my reason to be on this earth.” Now Elijah and Gregory play accordion together in heaven.
