Gretyl Macalaster, Union Leader Correspondent, reports that Marynas Levickis will perform on February 1, 2014 at the University of New Hampshire’s Paul Creative Arts Center. Tickets are $10-$30. Ms.Macalaster said, “When most people think of the accordion, they think of polkas, not pop music, but one young Lithuanian squeezebox player is looking to change that image, and succeeding.

Martynas Levickis has been playing the accordion since he was three and has been taking formal lessons since he was eight. He went on to study at the Royal Academy in London, but ventured home to participate in — and win — Lithuania’s version of “America’s Got Talent,” helping to earn some classical respect for the instrument in his country.

The release of his first CD, “Martynas” on DECCA Records, has helped him reach a broader audience. The recording, which shot to the top of the Classical FM charts in England, includes everything from a Lady Gaga cover to a Verdi composition.

“Accordion has been undervalued and also put into one and only perspective angle,” Levickis said. “But it’s such a universal instrument that it can’t fit in one role only.

Accordion is way more than just a tango or Parisian music instrument; it is so much more than a folky Polkas squeezebox. By arranging Lady Gaga and other pop music I want to attract younger generations to this instrument.”

In addition to performing solo, the 23-year-old Levickis is working with a diverse group of musicians, including Durham’s own prodigal violinist, Abe McWilliams, 21, who also lives in London.

The two call themselves “Duo Versus” and will bring their performance to the University of New Hampshire’s Paul Creative Arts Center in Durham on Saturday, Feb., 1 as part of the university’s Celebrity Series.

“What I’m hoping to do is provide … some new things … (audiences) have never really imagined before,” said McWilliams.

 Reinvention of classical music, and classical instruments, is what Duo Versus is all about.
McWilliams and Levickis met in London in a bar in 2011, when Levickis was studying at the Royal Academy of London and McWilliams had just moved from Vienna to work with an instructor in the area. The two started to discuss an obscure piece for violin, accordion and cello by Sofia Gubaidulina of eastern Russia, and eventually performed it for Gubaidulina’s 80th birthday concert in London.

“I think my passion, and my fascination with working with (Levickis), is I want to do something similar with the violin — to show the violin is capable of playing folk music in a very virtuosic and classical style and also moving into many other genres,” McWilliams said. “I think that’s what is interesting about our duo.”

McWilliams also is drawn to the folk music of Levickis’s home country. After about a year playing together, McWilliams learned that Levickis was teaching at a Lithuanian music school in London, so he paid a visit and was so struck by students singing a folk song. He immediately asked to play Lithuanian folk music with Levickis, and thus began the long and ongoing mission of arranging their own versions of traditional folk songs, contemporary classical music and pop.



McWilliams said the culture of Lithuania reflects a mix between Scandinavia and Eastern Europe, with an ancient language that comes from Sanskrit in India. “In the music of Lithuania you can hear this,” McWilliams said. “You can hear some very unique flavor, which may come from the east, and also a very Scandinavian influence in the music.”
His first visit to the country was three years ago when he performed with Levickis during the St. Christopher Festival in Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius. They followed that with some smaller concerts in the countryside and other cities. “That was the first tryout of our folk arrangements, and we really had a beautiful response from the audiences, (with) people saying how moved they were by this,” McWilliams said. “I also felt … so at home there. It’s quite similar to New Hampshire in terms of nature, but it also has this really rich culture which has so many traditions musically and artistically.”

That appreciation has inspired Levickis to rediscover his roots.
“I have to say I had turned away from Lithuanian folk music thinking it’s boring and banal, but Abe’s view on it made me like it again, and we both started arranging Lithuanian folk songs for our duo,” Levickis said.

McWilliams said he is now interested in learning about folk music from other nations, including Latvia and Georgia, both former Soviet republics. But the two also hold true to their classical training, and the performance at UNH will feature Bartok, Mozart and Bach as well as music by contemporary composers such as Arvo Part and Astor Piazzolla, as well as some of McWilliams’s own compositions, and of course, some folk.

Levickis’s first musical inspiration centered around the piano. “I saw a concert on TV where someone was playing piano beautifully and started tapping my fingers on the table saying (to) everybody around me that I play the piano and also asking everybody to join me,” Levickis said.
His family could not afford to buy him a piano, so his uncle and godfather, himself an artist, gave him an accordion. “I guess I improvised a lot — which is useful nowadays,” he recalled. “I don’t necessarily need music to be able to play …”

He started up picking up Lithuanian folk songs and rearranging them. From the ages of 8 to 18 Levickis studied accordion and other musical disciplines in the Sondeckis Arts School in Lithuania. “I think it was very crucial for my basis and gave me such good foundation, which I used so much later when I came to the London Royal Academy of Music to study with Professor Owen Murray,” Levickis said.

Levickis always has felt that classical accordion needs more exposure, which was his main reason for participating in Lithuania’s “Got Talent” television competition. But back in London, at the very serious classical music institution, Levickis thought the win would be considered a “sin,” he said, but, in fact, it was celebrated.

“People found out about it and then everybody congratulated me in the corridors,” Levickis said. He said it was a reminder of how important it is to never lose artistic instinct and integrity, “which, I have to be honest, is a hard thing to do in this commercial age,” Levickis said.
Since the release of his album Levickis has been touring constantly, something he describes as both exciting but exhausting.

A few months ago he made his way through Asia, playing in Japan, China, Korea and Singapore. That was followed by an intense schedule back in Lithuania, where he performed every day for three weeks. He is doing more than two dozen shows in the United States with violinist David Garret in two months.
McWilliams was about 5 when he first asked to play the violin. He began studying in Durham with Louise Kendall and by 15, he was studying at the New England Conservatory in Boston and with musicians with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

His childhood memories link his love of nature to his musicality. “I grew up, really, in the forest, and I would imitate bird sounds and animal noises as a child,” McWilliams said. “I think what I am still really interested in with the violin is its ability to really bring out the sounds of nature. It also has a quality similar to the human voice … (with) all the possibilities of … amazing ensemble music. I think it 
It was studying in Boston with a Polish instructor that sparked McWilliams’ interest in music across the globe.

At 17 he spent a summer taking a master course in Vienna and continued to study there the following year at the University of Music and Performing Arts. “

McWilliams said Lithuania’s resilience intrigues him. “I think because of their history and what they’ve been through that they have this really strong fire inside of them,” McWilliams said. “That was really clear to me working with Martynas, how driven he is.”

Tickets to Saturday’s show at UNH’s Paul Creative Arts Center are $10-$30. 

Call 862-7222 for more information.