Guy Klucevsek: Accordions4Peace – Artists4Peace

June 1st 2021
Rita Davidson Barnea
Guy Klucevsek

Video 1: “Music and Mobiles”: Guy Klucevsek / Keith Lo Bue

Video 2: “Bachtopus: String of Garlands”
Bachtopus is excited to release the fourth commission from our 2020 Composers Commissioning Fund, “String of Garlands,” which was originally written by composer and accordionist Guy Klucevsek for accordion orchestra and then arranged for Bachtopus. This composition was written in memory of Anne Garland for her husband David and son Kenji.

Video 3: Guy Klucevsek: “Pauline, Pauline” (for Pauline Oliveros)
Bellows Brigade, live at Roulette, Brooklyn, May 11, 2017. Guy Klucevsek, accordion & bass accordion, Will Holshouser, accordion, Nathan Koci & Kamala Sankaram, accordions and voices. Duration: ca. 17 minutes. Sections: 1. Buddha from Another Planet. 1a. Quietly So As Not to Wake the Butterfly (after Murikami), a moving interlude. 2. Shō-zilla! 3. Dronespeak. 4. Piper’s Lament. 5. The Queen of Kingston. 6. Pauline Oliveros.
Video by Point of Order Productions.

Guy Klucevsek is a contributing member of Artists4Peace. Included in this article are three of his compositions. Guy shares: “I began playing accordion in the 1950s, when I was five or six, and began composing as a teenager. Thus it’s probably more than a coincidence that my compositions are primarily for accordion—either alone or in multiples, or in combination with other instruments.

“String of Garlands” (2020’) was commissioned by Bachtopus, an accordion ensemble based in the New York City area. I imagined the sound of a mega-accordion—massive both in terms of pitch and dynamic extremes—and tried to create that sound through the medium of an accordion ensemble. This recording features accordionists Robert Duncan, Peter Flint, Mayumi Mayaoki and, on bass accordion, Jeanne Velonis. The video was created by Robert Duncan. The piece is dedicated to David and Kenji Garland, in memory of Ann Garland, a dear friend of mine.

“Music and Mobiles”(2013) is a video created by Keith LoBue which features his miniature mobiles and for which he commissioned a score from me. The music is for solo accordion, which I performed myself. Because the individual videos are very short, I had to immediately capture and sustain a mood—whether it was wistful, playful, shimmering—and not overly-concern myself with development. Keith LoBue is an amazing visual artist who creates one-of-a-kind jewelry and sculptures, most often using found objects. He has also done the art work for my CDs “Citrus, My Love” and “Song of Remembrance.” They were composed and assembled as opening sequences for Lo Bue’s online workshop entitled “Poetry in Motion: Making Marvelous Mobiles.”

“Pauline, Pauline” (2017)’, is dedicated to the memory of my longtime, dear friend, Pauline Oliveros. It is scored for 4 accordions, with several of the players doubling on voice and bass accordion. It consists of six short pieces: 1) Buddha from Another Planet, 2) Shō-zilla!, 3) Dronespeak, 4) Piper’s Lament, 5) The Queen of Kingston, and 6) Pauline Oliveros. I tried to capture many of the elements of Pauline’s work from over the decades: use of drones, voice and accordion, improvisation—from meditative to wild-and-wooly—organic quadraphonics (4 players surrounding the audience), analogue panning (players moving from one stationary location to another while playing or whistling). In the final piece, “Pauline Oliveros,” I used the rhythm of her name to generate the music, which becomes at once a chant and a lament. This video is from the premiere of the piece at Roulette, Brooklyn, New York, March 2017. The performers are Nathan Koci, Will Holshouser, Kamala Sankaram and myself.

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.

With a recording catalog spanning four decades, Guy Klucevsek remains one of the most accomplished and respected accordionists in the world.

Guy is the recipient of a 2010 United States Artists Collins Fellowship, an unrestricted $50,000 award given annually to “America’s finest artists.” He 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 CD’s on the Intuition (Germany) label.

Guy’s 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.”

Who are Artists 4 Peace? Artists for Peace (A4P) is an international collective that aims to contribute to world peace and sustainability by creating opportunities for meaningful communication and innovative collaborations across the world. Artists 4 Peace (A4P) is a global collective presenting works focused on peace and sustainable living.

The first edition was launched on September 21, 2020, aptly the United Nations International Day of Peace. Art forms include, but not limited to multidisciplinary works, Dance, Music, Film and Video, Theater, Writing, Science, and Visual Art. A4P will appear online as bi-monthly editions, presenting curated works within categories to a global audience.

For further information: gklucevsek@mac.com