Accordionist and composer, Guy Klucevsek, has been awarded a $50,000 United States Artist Fellowship grant. These unrestricted grants are awarded to “artists of all career stages who demonstrate artistic excellence, unique artistic vision, and significant contributions to their fields.” 

This year’s 52 USA Fellows represent some of the most innovative and diverse creative talents in the country. They include cutting-edge experimenters and traditional practitioners from the fields of architecture and design, crafts and traditional arts, dance, literature, film and media, music, theater arts, and visual arts.

Chosen for the caliber and impact of their work, the USA Fellows for 2010 hail from 18 states and Puerto Rico, range in age from 32 to 71, and represent some of the most innovative and diverse creative talents in the country.

This marks the fifth year of the USA Fellows program and brings the total that USA has invested in living artists to $12.5 million since 2006!

Guy performed “Chez Sechelles” composed by the fiddler, Michael Doucet on December 7,2010 at the “Live from Jazz at Lincoln Center” program. It was broadcast online live and viewed across the USA. The group Guy performed with was made up of previous United States Artists Fellows and Guy as the most recent awardee.
Members of the band were:
Cyro Baptista, USA Walker Fellow, Music (percussion)
Michael Doucet, USA Collins Fellow, Music (fiddle)
Guy Klucevsek, USA Collins Fellow, Music (accordion)
Wu Man, USA Broad Fellow, Music (pipa)
Evan Ziporyn, USA Walker Fellow, Music (clarinet, bass clarinet)

United States Artists (USA’s) mission is to invest in America’s finest artists and illuminate the value of artists to society.

Supporting outstanding artistic talent has been realized by the USA Fellows program over the past 5 years. By the end of 2009, 213 artists had been named USA Fellows, each receiving a grant of $50,000, for a total of direct investment in artists equalling $10,000,000.

USA’s investment funded new dances, poetry, films, theatrical productions, musical compositions, paintings, sculpture, and more. Worldwide audiences of all ages have encountered these stimulating new works in galleries, on stages, in print, and online.

USA has actively examined strategies to invest in more artists and increase awareness of artists in America beyond the successful USA Fellows program. These efforts led to the creation of USA Projects, where the aim is to:
Foster community:
•Build a social networking environment to facilitate conversation, community, and commitment
•Become the place to look for “what’s happening near you” in the arts
Facilitate philanthropy:
•Enable easy online contributions for accomplished artists’ projects
•Establish a free online location for accomplished artists to showcase past work, current projects, and future plans
•Create opportunities for accomplished artists to connect directly with donors
•Support opportunities for community, corporate, and foundational engagement
Champion advocacy:
•Create an opportunity to improve the “96/27 Gap” found in the appreciation of art versus artists
•Cultivate a place to do “spot surveys” on issues impacting the arts/artists with links to arts advocacy opportunities

USA Projects is an act of optimistic belief in our nation and its outstanding artists. We still have much to learn, and hope you will engage, explore, and join us to help build a more creative future.

Selection Process
To become a USA Fellow, one must be nominated. Each year nominations are made by a different anonymous group of arts leaders, critics, scholars, and artists chosen by USA. Nominators do not know one another; their identities remain confidential.

Nominators are asked to submit names of artists they believe show an extraordinary commitment to their craft. Artists at any stage of career development may be nominated. To be considered for fellowships, artists must be 21 years of age or older and U.S. citizens or legal residents in any U.S. state. A legal resident is any individual who has the status of having been lawfully accorded the privilege of residing permanently in the U.S. as an immigrant in accordance with the U.S. immigration laws. Artists must have the following:

•Expert artistic skills
•Artistic education or training (formal or informal)
•A history of deriving income from those skills
•A history of active engagement in creating artwork and presenting it to the public

Artist Applications
Nominated artists are notified of their nominations and encouraged to apply. Artists are required to fill out a simple online application and submit work samples.

Peer Panel Review 
Discipline-specific peer panels composed of leading artists and art experts meet to select the program finalists. The USA Board of Directors approves the final recommendations.

Announcement 
The USA Fellows and the peer panelists who selected them are announced annually at an awards celebration.

GUY KLUCEVSEK has created a unique repertoire for accordion through his own composing and by commissioning over 50 works from composers including John Zorn, Aaron Jay Kernis, Lois V Vierk, Fred Frith, Alvin Lucier, Mary Ellen Childs, William Duckworth, Jerome Kitzke, Stephen Montague and Somei Satoh.

His music/theatre pieces include  Squeezeplay — collaborations with Mary Ellen Childs, David Dorfman and Dan Froot, Dan Hurlin, Victoria Marks and Claire Porter — which The Village Voice called “delicious”;  Hard Coal, with The Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble, and   Chinoiserie, with Ping Chong and Company,which was featured on the 1995 Next Wave Festival at BAM.

Solo performances include the 1998 Adelaide Festival in Australia, the Berlin Jazz Festival, New Music America, Serious Fun! at Lincoln Center, Spoleto Festival/USA, Bang on a Can, and the children’s television show Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.

He has also performed and/or recorded with Laurie Anderson, Anthony Braxton, Bill Frisell, Fred Frith, Robin Holcomb, the Kronos Quartet, Pauline Oliveros, Bobby Previte, Relâche and John Zorn.

He was a member of Dave Douglas’s band, Charms of the Night Sky, since it’s inception, and recorded three albums with the group.

In 1987, Klucevsek commissioned Polka From the Fringe, a collection of 32 post-modern two-steps by such composers as Carl Finch, Fred Frith, Christian Marclay and Elliott Sharp, which he presented at the 1988 Next Wave Festival, and has performed around the world with his group, Ain’t Nothin’ But A Polka Band.

In 1996, Klucevsek formed The Accordion Tribe, an international line-up of composer/accordionists Maria Kalaniemi (Finland), Lars Hollmer (Sweden), Bratko Bibic (Slovenia), Otto Lechner (Austria), and Klucevsek (USA).

Following a highly successful, 18-concert, 3-week European tour, Intuition (Germany) released Accordion Tribe,a CD made up of live recordings from the tour.
Klucevsek has released over 20 recordings as soloist/leader, including  Polka Dots & Laser Beams and  Who Stole the Polka?,< which were chosen as the best recordings of 1992 by John Schaefer on the nationally-syndicated radio program New Sounds, and  Transylvanian Softwear, which was cited as a 1995 Recording of Special Merit in Stereo Review. He can also be heard on the compilations  Planet Squeezebox on Ellipsis Arts and  <Great Jewish Music: Burt Bacharach on Tzadik.

Congratulations to Guy Klucevsek!

For further information: gklucevsek@si.rr.com,