Guy Klucevsek
Postmodern Accordion Fusion

From his very earliest experiences with the accordion, Guy Klucevsek has had a musical split personality. Born in New York City, but raised in the polka belt of western Pennsylvania, Guy Klucevsek absorbed the accordion folk traditions of the Slovenian-American community, while at the same time being introduced to transcriptions of classical piano and violin music by his accordion teacher, Walter Grabowski. As a student of composition, he immersed himself in Bach, Bartok, and the Western classical and contemporary music canons but in the 1980's, his interests expanded to include jazz, avant-garde improvisation, and traditional musics from around the world. The result is a highly personal and uniquely postmodern style on the instrument, expressing a distinctly classical sensibility and a constant desire to push the boundaries of conventional genre categories. Klucevsek amazes audiences and musicians both as a performer and a composer, as comfortable with Balkan folk music styles as with John Zorn's experimental free jazz. His music displays a fanciful wit and daring fusion of genres, as clever as it is beautiful.

Klucevsek has recorded and/or performed with many of the world's great contemporary musicians - including Dave Douglas, Bill Frisell, Anthony Braxton, and the Kronos Quartet. He has also appeared on Broadway, can be heard on the soundtracks of Steven Spielberg films, and has composed numerous works for theatre, dance and film. He has toured the world over and released over 20 recordings as a soloist and band leader. In 1987, he commissioned a collection of 30+ polkas entitled Polka From the Fringe from such new musical mavericks as Fred Frith, Christian Marclay, Carl Finch, John King, Bobby Previte, William Duckworth, David Mahler, and Mary Ellen Childs, which he toured around the world with his group, Ain't Nothin' But a Polka Band, and released on two compact recordings in the early 90's, called Polka Dots and Laser Beams and Who Stole the Polka. In 1996 he co-founded The Accordion Tribe, an international collective of accordionist/composers, which has released three recordings, and is the subject of the 2003 documentary film, Accordion Tribe: Music Travels. Certainly one of the finest contemporary accordionists in North America, Guy Klucevsek is not to be missed.