Video 1: Guy Klucevsek: “The Swan and the Vulture”
Guy Klucevsek: Composer/Accordionist
Camera: Ray Foley
Editor: Elmo King
Recorded at: Casa Klucevsek
Composed in 2014 at the MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, NH

Video 2: Guy Klucevsek: “As They Waltz off into the Sunset”
Subtitled: “The Mystery of the Disappearing/Reappearing Tie”
Guy Klucevsek: Composer/Accordionist
Camera: Ray Foley
Editor: Elmo King
Sheet music available in Guy’s book, Vignettes: Short Pieces for Accordion, published early in 2020, available through Bandcamp

Roulette Presents Guy Klucevsek 75th Birthday Celebration on May 14, 2022 at 8:PM. The “Music of Guy Klucevsek” will be performed by The Bachtopus Accordion Ensemble (Robert Duncan, Peter Flint, Mayumi Miyaoka, Jeanne Velonis) Alan Bern: accordion and piano; Will Holshouser: accordion; Nathan Koci, accordion; Jenny Lin, piano; Todd Reynolds, violin. The event will feature solos, duos and ensemble pieces written between 1980 and 2021, including five premieres. Roulette is located on  509 Atlantic Ave. Brooklyn, NY.

Having retired from the concert stage in 2019, Klucevsek is proud to hand over the performances in this program of solos, duets and quartets to a distinguished cast of musicians he has worked with over many years and, in some cases, decades: Todd Reynolds, violin, Jenny Lin, piano, and accordionists the Bachtopus ensemble (Robert Duncan, Peter Flint, Mayumi Miyaoka, Jeanne Velonis), Alan Bern (doubling piano), Will Holshouser and Nathan Koci.  The pieces Klucevsek has selected represent 40+ years of his composing, from “Oscillation No. 2 for piano” (1980), through “The Grass”, “It Is Blue (Ain’t Nothin’ But a Polka)” (1986), “Flying Vegetables of the Apocalypse” (1988), “Eleven Large Lobsters Loose in the Lobby “(1991) and “Bar Talk” (1998) (in memory of Béla Bartók), up to pieces from the 21st century, including

Seven World Premieres:
“Seesaw Song”, Will Holshouser, accordion
“Feel the Bern”, Alan Bern, accordion
“String of Garlands” and “Slango”, Bachtopus accordion ensemble
“Winter is an Etching”, Jenny Lin, piano, and Todd Reynolds, violin
“A Certain Slant of Light”, Jenny Lin, piano
“Hope Dies Last”, Todd Reynolds, violin and Nathan Koci, accordion


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.

He 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.

His 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.”

For further information: gklucevsek@mac.com