Press Release of Series of Events which Guy Klucevsek is doing in March:

What: Guy Klucevsek Concert Residency |     40 Year Composer Retrospective
When: Tuesday 3.17–Sunday 3.22 at 8:00pm
Where: The Stone, Corner of Avenue C/2nd Street, NYC, Train: F/J/M/Z at Delancey-Essex
Tickets: $20. No advanced ticket sales. For more information, visit thestonenyc.com. 
Media Contact: April Thibeault, AMT PR, 212.861.0990, april@amtpublicrelations.com 

“Forget everything you thought you knew about the accordion.”          – The Seattle Weekly 

“Klucevsek is a musical Orient Express whose themes pass from Hungarian gypsy to Slovenian waltz to Middle Eastern wail without stopping at the borders.” – Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

John Zorn’s renowned THE STONE presents Guy Klucevsek | A 40 Year Composer Retrospective  — a weeklong residency performed and curated by composer/accordionist Guy Klucevsek. For six consecutive nights, some of today’s top artists from both the jazz and new music scene join Klucevsek in performing his pieces written over the past four decades (1972-2014), including three world premieres and seven New York premieres. (Complete schedule is below.)

This residency marks the collaborative culmination of a decades-long relationship between Klucevsek and Zorn that was born in 1984. “After hearing Zorn’s Rugby for the first time, every idea I had about performing and composing was challenged,” says Klucevsek. “Though my pieces sound nothing like Zorn, their episodic structure and mixture of popular music sources with art music techniques came directly out of my experiences with Zorn and the free improve scene of the 80s.”

Surveying his last 40 years of writing, Klucevsek has composed over 100 pieces for solo accordion, and more than 30 pieces on commission from dance and theatre companies. 

His music entertains and engages even as it addresses musical ideas of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. While occasionally referencing the traditional accordion repertoire, Klucevsek’s music incorporates a dash of Eastern European paprika and dance rhythms, a sprinkle of Tex-Mex accordion and flamenco guitar, and a peppering of post-modern avant-garde music. “There is always something happening beneath the simple melodies and harmonies — tremolos, counterpoint, polymeter — to add density,” explains Klucevsek of his own compositions.

Klucevsek is a major contributor to the accordion renaissance of the last 25 years. “I began playing in 1952, when the accordion was the most popular instrument in America,” says Klucevsek. “The most amazing thing about being an accordionist for 40 years has been to experience the dramatic shifts in public opinion about the instrument.”

About Guy Klucevsek:
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, Fred Frith, Rahim al Haj, Robin Holcomb, Kepa Junkera, the Kronos Quartet, Natalie Merchant, Present Music, Relâche, Zeitgeist, and John Zorn.

Guy is the recipient of a 2010 United States Artists Collins Fellowship, an unrestricted $50,000 award given annually to “America’s finest artists.” In November/December 2014, he was awarded a fellowship to the MacDowell Colony to pursue his creative work.

He has created a unique repertoire for accordion through his own composing and by commissioning over 50 works from composers including Mary Ellen Childs, William Duckworth, Fred Frith, Aaron Jay Kernis, Jerome Kitzke, Stephen Montague, Somei Satoh, Lois V Vierk, and John Zorn. He has composed over 20 dance scores for choreographers including Karen Bamonte, Martha Bowers, Angela Caponigro, David Dorfman, Anita Feldman, Victoria Marks, Stuart Pimsler, and Mark Taylor.

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.”

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 Softwear, 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.”
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GUY KLUCEVSEK | 40 YEAR COMPOSER RESTROSPECTIVE
(subject to change)

*Guy Klucevsek plays accordion on all programs. All compositions are written by Klucevsek, except where otherwise indicated.

TUE 3.17 @ 8:00PM | The Klucevsek/Bern Unit
Guy Klucevsek (accordion)
Alan Bern (accordion & piano)

Guy and Alan first joined forces in 1998, and have played together as a duo, off and on, ever since. Tonight’s program features music from their two Winter & Winter releases —Accordance (2000) and Notefalls (2007) — plus more recent work including the New York premieres of The Day the Snow Fell Upwards (2011) and Haywire Rag (A Waltz) (2010).  They will perform several of Alan Bern’s compositions as well.

WED 3.18 @ 8:00PM | Teetering on the Verge of Normalcy:  Music for Dance and Theatre
Guy Klucevsek (accordion)
Peter Brown (voice)
Jed Distler (piano)
Kamala Sankaram (voice)
Todd Reynolds (violin)
Margaret Leng Tan (toy piano, toy instruments)

Klucevsek has created scores for dozens of dance and theatre productions over the years (subsequently receiving two Bessie Awards for his work). Tonight’s ensemble pays homage to his theatrical side with music from Chinoiserie (for PIng Chong and Company), Fallen Shadows (for Karen Bamonte Dance Works), Industrious Angels (for a one-person show by/with Laurie McCants), and Ruth Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (for Lionel Popkin Dance Company).

THU 3.19 @ 8:00PM | Guy Solo
Guy Klucevsek (accordion)

Klucevsek has written over 100 pieces for solo accordion.  This program features pieces from four decades, 1982 – 2014, from his recordings Scenes from a Mirage (Review), Transylvanian Softwear (Starkland), The Well-Tempered Accordion and The Heart of the Andes (Winter and Winter), and Dancing on the Volcano (Tzadik), as well as the New York premiere of Bob Flath Waltzes with the Angels (2014).

FRI 3.20 @ 8:00PM | The Bantam Orchestra 
Guy Klucevsek (accordion)
Mary Rowell (violin)
Erik Friedlander (cello)
Pete Donovan (bass)

Klucevsek assembled this string trio plus accordion for two dance scores in 1990:  Citrus, My Love for Stuart Pimsler, and Passage North for Angela Caponigro. This stellar ensemble also recorded two albums together with this instrumentation: Citrus, My Love (1992, recrec/Swiss, out-of-print) and Stolen Memories. 

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This program will feature selections from those two recordings as well as several pieces from Flying Vegetables of the Apocalypse (1991, XI), and the world premiere of For the First Time (2014), featuring Erik Friedlander, cello.

SAT 3.21 @ 8:00PM | Buffalo Braunschweiger 
Guy Klucevsek (accordion)
Steve Elson (saxes & clarinets)
Pete Donovan (bass)
Barbara Merjan (drums)

The debut of a band showcasing some of his latest work, tonight’s program features premieres of Klucevsek’s music for trio and quartet. Pieces include: world premiere of The Swan and the Vulture (2014), New York premieres of Three Quarter Moon (in memory of Kurt Weill) (2014), and Little Big Top (in memory of Nino Rota) (2014), both commissioned by The University of Wisconsin – River Falls.

SUN 3.22 @ 8:00PM | AAATT (All Accordions All the Time) 
Guy Klucevsek (accordion)
Art Bailey (accordion)
Nathan Koci (accordion & bass accordion)

Marking the debut of Klucevsek’s new accordion ensemble, tonight’s program features music that he wrote for his long-time band, the Accordion Tribe (1996 – 2010). One of the pieces Guy is most excited about doing is Toronto: (sevenths) (1972), the first performance of this piece in over 20 years.  Art Bailey and Nathan Koci will also contribute a composition each to this program. Other works on the menu include: the 
world premiere of Music for Mobiles (2013), commissioned for a video by Keith LoBue; and the New York premieres of Euroslavian Wedding Dance (2014), and As They Waltz off into the Sunset (2014), both commissioned by the University of Wisconsin – River Falls.

For more information, please visit: http://www.guyklucevsek.com 

For photo/video/audio downloads, please visit: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/u8audfkc200oebv/AACZbvZJwLZOpcjOWioAFhuFa?dl=0 

For artist interviews, photos, tickets, etc., please contact:               April Thibeault, AMT PR│212.861.0990 | april@amtpublicrelations.com