Guy Klucevsek

Accomplished accordionist and composer Guy Klucevsek stunned audiences around the world with his mastery of the unwieldy instrument in jazz- and world-influenced avant-garde concerts. Included on compilations from Tzadik's Burt Bacharach tribute to the Ellipsis Arts release Planet Squeezebox, Klucevsek also issued numerous recordings for labels including Winter & Winter, Starkland, and Innova. He appeared on recordings by John Zorn, Tom Waits, and Pauline Oliveros. He combined polka, minimalism, and even punk with with his group Ain't Nothin' But a Polka Band. He composed extensively for modern dance and was awarded a BESSIE in 1995 for the score for Hey by choreographer David Dormanis. His recordings include solo ventures like 2000's Free Range Accordion as well as full-band efforts like 2009's Dancing on the Volcano. Little Big Top, a 2024 collaboration with Volker Goetze, was his final release during his lifetime. Guy Klucevsek started playing the accordion when he was five. He studied the instrument with Walter Grabowski, who introduced him to the more difficult free-bass accordion. He formed a Slovenian polka band while in high school. He later studied under Harold Budd, James Tenney, and Morton Subotnick at the California Institute of the Arts. He taught at Glassboro State College during the '70s and was a member of Philadelphia chamber ensemble Relâche throughout the '80s. Klucevsek performed and recorded with a variety of creative musicians such as John Zorn, Bill Frisell, Anthony Braxton, and Kronos Quartet. He released a cassette with Pauline Oliveros, Sounding/Way, in 1986. His first LP, Scenes from a Mirage, was issued in 1987. The '90s saw the release of several solo releases, including Flying Vegetables of the Apocalypse and Manhattan Cascade, as well as radically reimagined polka efforts with Ain't Nothin' But a Polka Band and string trio compositions with the Bantam Orchestra. In 1996, he co-founded Accordion Tribe with master accordionists from around the world including Lars Hollmer (Sweden), Maria Kalaniemi (Finland), Bratko Bibic (Slovenia), and Otto Lechner (Austria). In 1998, Accordion Tribe came out on Intuition, and Winter & Winter released an album by another group with Klucevsek, Dave Douglas' Charms of the Night Sky, which comprised Klucevsek, bassist Greg Cohen, and violinist Mark Feldman. The Charms of the Night Sky group toured North America and Europe on and off for the next three years, and recorded A Thousand Evenings on RCA, while Accordion Tribe released two additional Intuition CDs -- Sea of Reeds (2003) and Lunghorn Twist (2006) -- and tour extensively throughout Europe well into the new millennium. Meanwhile, Klucevsek continued to release a number of CDs under his own name as both leader and collaborator, including the Winter & Winter CDs Accordance (2001) and Notefalls (2007), both featuring Klucevsek in duet with pianist/accordionist Alan Bern; Tales from the Cryptic (2003) by the duo of Klucevsek and saxophonist Phillip Johnston; and The Well-Tampered Accordion (2004), a solo accordion recording including pieces written for the audio book version of Accordion Crimes, a novel by E. Annie Proulx. Klucevsek's Tzadik label CDs as leader included the modern composition-oriented Song of Remembrance (2007) and Dancing on the Volcano (2009) with Klucevsek in a quartet lineup featuring clarinet/sax, bass, and drums. Also, beginning in the 2000s, his accordion was featured in film scores by John Williams. Klucevsek won a United States Artists Fellow Award in 2010. He issued the eclectic The Multiple Personality Reunion Tour on Innova in 2012. Teetering on the Verge of Normalcy appeared on Starkland in 2016. Carousel of Dreams, with the Bellows Brigade ensemble, was issued in 2018 and included pieces dedicated to friends such as Pauline Oliveros and Evan Harlan. Klucevsek stopped touring due to illness. His book, Vignettes (Short Pieces for Accordion), was published in 2020. My Choice, a compilation of material from the musician's Winter & Winter releases, was issued in 2021. Klucevsek played on Simple Music, an album of compositions by Giya Kancheli performed on piano by Jenny Lin, which was issued by Steinway & Sons. He gave his last public performance in 2022, but continued making music, issuing Hope Dies Last in 2023. Little Big Top, with Volker Goetze, was released in 2024. Guy Klucevsek passed away on May 22, 2025. ~ Joslyn Layne & Paul Simpson, Rovi