Guy Klucevsek’s new recording, “Carousel of Dreams,” was released on June 18, 2018. The recording features Guy’s solo compositions, including “Three Tributes,” commissioned by the American Accordionists’ Association, and a trio and quartets for Bellows Brigade, where Guy is joined by fellow accordionists Will Holshouser, Nathan Koci (doubling voice) and Kamala Sankaram (doubling voice). The feature piece is a 17-minute suite, “Pauline, Pauline,” dedicated to the memory of Guy’s long-time friend, composer/accordionist Pauline Oliveros.
The title composition is dedicated to Cody McSherry (see article about him in this publication), who premiered the piece on May 6, 2018 in a concert by the Accordion Pops orchestra, with Guy and his wife, Jan, in attendance.
Produced by AAA Governing Board Member Jeanne Velonis, “Carousel of Dreams,” will be released both as a physical CD, to be available through CDBaby, and digitally through CDBaby, Amazon.com, itunes, and many other digital and streaming outlets.
Tom Steenland said, “The great Guy Klucevsek has released yet another wonderful CD. Gorgeous melodies seem to effortlessly flow from him – and have for decades. “Carousel of Dreams” opens with the delightful tribute “Evan-essence” (showing off Guy’s formidable technique) and ends with a lovely tribute to his wife, poignantly titled “As They Waltz Off Into the Sunset.” The album’s centerpiece is a multi-movement tribute to Pauline Oliveros. Their long-term friendship was full of mutual respect, laced with humor and wit. Appropriately, it’s the longest tribute I’ve heard from Guy, and fittingly, the most experimental work on the CD, concluding with a movingly beautiful, hymn-like setting of the text “Pauline Oliveros.” In addition to Guy, this Bellows Brigade ensemble also includes accordionists Will Holshouser, Nathan Koci, and Kamala Sankaram. A highly recommended, constantly inventive album.”
On Saturday, June 23, 2018, Guy took part in Relâche’s 40th Anniversary concert, performing two of his solo compositions. The concert includes three pieces by Guy Klucevsek: The Swan and the Vulture (2014), Little Big Top (2014), and Haywire Rag (a Waltz)(2010), with the former two pieces featuring Guy on the accordion.
From 1980-1990, Guy served as composer, Music Advisor, and ensemble member with Relâche. “Relâche” is taken from Erik Satie’s 1924 collaborative ballet whose absurdist title on the theatre marquis translated to “no performance today.” Since 1977, the band’s work with composers such as John Cage and James Tenney, and with the most thoughtful (and fun!) organized sound of today has tested music’s limits – if not its strict definitions then certainly the cultural boundaries negotiated by so called “art music.
Excerpts from the website: Relâche’s aim has never been to play “safe” music. In music, when composers and performers relinquish their assumptions of structural and social parameters, the audience’s thrill – our thrill – of the unexpected catches us vulnerable, and the results can be frightfully sublime, innocent, or hilarious.
As one of Relâche’s founding members, Guy Klucevsek knows this as well as anyone. Revisiting his compatriots with a set of works whose explorations of modality are deceptively simple on first hearing, Klucevsek’s echoes of Eastern Europe reflect both the dance repertoire of his accordionist training in the outright catchy Wing/Prayer, and the sobriety of (dare we say) Górecki in Still Life With Canon. Placed in contrast to the epic introspection of Cynthia Folio’s work and Mark Hagerty’s gear shifting,
Klucevsek’s punctuations – particularly his dances – subversively offer a more wry notion of the “play” in this recording’s title is a new music ensemble that for over 40 years has maintained an international reputation as a leader in commissioning and performing the innovative music of our time. Relâche has a unique sound—flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, viola, piano, bass and percussion, and performs works that are neither classical, nor popular, but somewhere in between—a melding of Western classical traditions with jazz, rock, electronica, world music, and more.
Excerpts from his website: Guy Klucevsek is one of the world’s most versatile and highly-respected accordionists. He has performed and/or recorded with Laurie Anderson, Bang On a Can, Brave Combo, Anthony Braxton, Anthony Coleman, Dave Douglas, Bill Frisell, Rahim al Haj, Robin Holcomb, Kepa Junkera, the Kronos Quartet, Natalie Merchant, Present Music, Relâche, Zeitgeist, and John Zorn.
Guy Klucevsek is the recipient of a 2010 United States Artists Collins Fellowship, an unrestricted $50,000 award given annually to “America’s finest artists.”
Guy and his music are included in two documentaries about the accordion, “Behind the Bellows” and, most recently, “Accordions Rising” by Roberta Cantow.
Guy has premiered over 50 solo accordion pieces, including his own, as well as those he has commissioned from Mary Ellen Childs, William Duckworth, Fred Frith, Aaron Jay Kernis, Jerome Kitzke, Stephen Montague, Somei Satoh, Lois V Vierk, and John Zorn.
Performances include the Ten Days on the Island Festival (Tasmania), the Adelaide Festival (Australia), the Berlin Jazz Festival, Lincoln Center, Spoleto Festival/USA, BAM Next Wave Festival, Cotati Accordion Festival, San Antonio International Accordion Festival, Vienna International Accordion Festival, and the children’s television show “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.”
His 1987 project, Polka From the Fringe, a collection of commissioned polkas by Fred Frith, Elliott Sharp, Bobby Previte, Carl Finch, et. al., toured around the world and was released on 2 cds on the eva label, and were named “best recordings 1992” on WNYC-FM’s “New Sounds” program.
In 1996, he founded Accordion Tribe, an international ensemble of composer/accordionists Otto Lechner (Austria), Maria Kalanemi (Finland), Lars Hollmer (Sweden), Bratko Bibic (Slovenia) and himself. They toured internationally from 1996-2009, are the subjects of Stefan Schwietert’s award-winning documentary film, Accordion Tribe: Music Travels, and released 3 cds on the Intuition (Germany) label.
His music theatre scores include “Chinoiserie” and “Obon” with Ping Chong and Company, “Hard Coal,” with the Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble, “Industrious Angels” for Laurie McCants, “Cirque Lili” for French circus artist Jérôme Thomas, which has been performed over 250 times world wide, always with live music, and his own piece, “Squeeze Play,” an evening of collaborations with Dan Hurlin, David Dorfman and Dan Froot, Claire Porter, and Mary Ellen Childs. He and Dan Hurlin were awarded, jointly, a BESSIE for, “The Heart of the Andes,” which has played the Henson International Puppetry Festival, The Barbican Center in London, and the Ten Days on the Island Festival, Tasmania.
Klucevsek has released over 20 recordings as soloist/leader on Tzadik, Winter & Winter, innova, Starkland, Review, Intuition, CRI, and XI. Stereo Review cited his Starkland recording, Transylvanian Software, as a recording of special merit” (1995). He can also be heard on John Williams’s orchestral scores for the Steven Spielberg films, “The Terminal,” “Munich,” “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” and “The Adventures of Tin-Tin,” and on A. R. Rahman’s score for “People Like Us.”
On Saturday, June 30,2018 at 8:PM, Guy was part of PS21 Theatre’s Opening Night Celebration and Revue, in Chatham, NY, and performed his solo compositions.
For further information: gklucevsek@mac.com
