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The American accordionist and composer, Guy Klucevsek, studied the accordion with Walter Grabowski, New Kensington, Pennsylvania from 1955 to 1965. He obtained his B.A. degree in Music Theory/Composition from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 1969; his M.A. degree in Music Theory/Composition from the University of Pittsburgh in 1971. His Post Graduate Independent Study was California Institute of the Arts in 1971-1972. Among his Composition Teachers were Morton Subotnick, Gerald Shapiro, and Robert Bernat.
Guy Klucevsek is one of relatively few accordion players active in jazz and free improvisation. Solo performances include the Ten Days on the Island and Adelaide Festivals in Australia, the Berlin Jazz Festival, New Music America, Serious Fun! at Lincoln Center, Bang on a Can, Spoleto Festival/USA, and the children’s television show Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. He has also performed and/or recorded with Laurie Anderson, Anthony Braxton, Anthony Coleman, Bill Frisell, Fred Frith, Robin Holcomb, the Kronos Quartet, Natalie Merchant, Pauline Oliveros, Present Music, Bobby Previte, Relâche, Jubilant Sykes, and John Zorn. Other artists who have recorded his compositions include Dave Douglas, Carol Emanuel, Relache, Aki Takahashi, Margaret Leng Tan, and Twisted Tutu. He was an original member of Dave Douglas’s band, Charms of the Night Sky, with whom he recorded three albums and toured throughout North America and Europe.
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, Chinoiserie, with Ping Chong and Company,which was featured on the 1995 Next Wave Festival at BAM, and Cirque Lili (2000), with French circus artist Jerome Thomas, a piece which has been performed over 250 times world-wide, always with live music. In 1987, Guy 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, Guy 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). They have released three recordings on the Intuition label, and are the subjects of the Stefan Schwietert documentary film, Accordion Tribe: Music Travels , which was released in theaters across Europe in 2004-2005, and featured at film festivals in North America.
Guy Klucevsek has released 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. You can also hear him on John Williams's scores for the Steven Spielberg films The Terminal, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and Munich. He has performed on Broadway in Fiddler on the Roof, Victor/Victoria and Piaf.
His awards include: New York Dance & Performance Award (BESSIE), for "Altered Landscapes," a solo accordion score for David Dorfman Dances, "Hey" (1995); Publishers Weekly Listen Up Audiobook Awards: Best Original Score, "Accordion Crimes," novel by E. Annie Proux, music by Guy Klucevsek (1996).New York Dance & Performance Award (BESSIE), jointly with Dan Hurlin, for the puppet/theatre piece, Everyday Uses for Sight #7: The Heart of the Andes (2002). In 2010 he won a United States Artists Fellow award. |
