Timeless Suite by Klaus Paier & Asja Valcic

Klaus Paier & Asja Valcic

Timeless Suite

Price: € 22.95
Format: CD
Label: ACT music
UPC: 0614427959829
Catnr: ACT 95982
Release date: 28 August 2015
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Label
ACT music

UPC
0614427959829

Catalogue number
ACT 95982

Release date
28 August 2015

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

About the album

Accordion and cello. A rare combination, but no less remarkable is the sound of the Klaus Paier and Asja Valcic duo. Is it jazz, classical or world music? Old, new or crossover? Whatever it is, the music is timeless, intense, always surprising, and transcends genre borders. The quest for the perfect sound of accordion and bandoneon led Klaus Paier to an entirely new, unique playing technique that allows his instrument to breathe and gives him the space for unrivalled stylistic and improvisational freedom, and in no way does Asja Valcic take a back seat. She plays her “cello, that can foot it like a double bass” with “an incredible wealth of variations” (KulturSPIEGEL). In combination, this dream team displays “an unconventional beauty for which we lack any comparison. Energetically-breathing chamber music, in which the composition and improvisation are fascinatingly linked” (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung). On “Timeless Suite”, Paier and Valcic accentuate their roots in occidental art music. A suite is a form of music that contains successive pieces, mostly dances, and here the two have brought together eleven dances and dance related themes for the album. New compositions and classical oeuvres are developed and enriched with improvisation. Jazz and tango, waltzes and baroque music mingle as if they were always meant to be together. For “Incontro Con Stravinsky”, for instance, Paier uses Igor Stravinsky’s ballet music “Pulcinella”, which harks back to the Italian baroque composers Pergolesi and Gallo. For Valcic, on the other hand, the music of Johann Sebastian Bach is a decisive inspiration, especially in her interpretation of “Sarabande” from the Bach suite No. 5 in C Minor for cello. “Maestoso & Melodioso”, composed for bandoneon and cello, and the spirited “Saskia’s Dance”, in which part of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor is invoked, are also inspired by the great German composer. “Inside A Flower” and “Amelie’s Fairy Tale” provide the balladesque moods between the dances of the suite. “Vocalmente” makes sure there is also a slow tango on “Timeless Suite”. “Green Rondo” is an original jazz piece based on the Dave Brubeck classic “Blue Rondo A La Turk”. “Timeless Suite” merges the past with the present in an unmistakable and unique way. Curiosity and courage are the outstanding virtues here that unite these two adventurous musicians in a congenial alliance. It is a scintillating dance that one hopes will never end.

Artist(s)

Klaus Paier (accordion)

Paier studied accordion, jazz and composition at Klagenfurt conservatory. Paier has been particularly inspired by such instrumentalists as Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans, Charles Mingus or Thelonious Monk. For him, their conception of jazz, with its wide diversity of musical possibilities and freedoms, was of inestimable importance. In addition to the historically evolved European harmonies involving the accordion, the classical component has also assumed an unmistakable position in Paier's compositions. He himself aims to express a positively charged polarity in music: attraction and rejection, weight and lightness, loudness and quietness, openness and self-containment, strict discipline and passionate explosiveness. He accomplishes this feat again and again in an inimitable manner, enthralling his audience in concert tours in Israel, France, Italy, Sweden, Poland...

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Asja Valcic (cello)

Asja Valcic, at 18 completed the music academy in her home city of Zagreb. She followed that with studies at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow and at the Hochschule für Musik in Detmold. She has given solo performances among others under the direction of Zubin Mehta and Kazushi Ono; her chamber music partners have included members of distinguished ensembles such as Alban Berg, Brodsky and the Melos Quartet. She was awarded the 'Concours international de jeunes concertistes de Douai“ in France in 1995. The cello leads a sonorous, if not largely inconspicuous, existence outside of the classical music world. Emerging from this background, the cellist, Asja Valcic has solidified a conspicuous place for herself in the European music scene. Parallel to her engagements and recordings...

Asja Valcic, at 18 completed the music academy in her home city of Zagreb. She followed that with studies at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow and at the Hochschule für Musik in Detmold. She has given solo performances among others under the direction of Zubin Mehta and Kazushi Ono; her chamber music partners have included members of distinguished ensembles such as Alban Berg, Brodsky and the Melos Quartet. She was awarded the "Concours international de jeunes concertistes de Douai“ in France in 1995. The cello leads a sonorous, if not largely inconspicuous, existence outside of the classical music world. Emerging from this background, the cellist, Asja Valcic has solidified a conspicuous place for herself in the European music scene. Parallel to her engagements and recordings in classical subjects, Asja Valcic has increasingly turned to improvisation and new forms of expression for her instrument. Both the radio.string.quartet.vienna, which she cofounded in 2004, as well as duos with the Austrian accordionist and composer, Klaus Paier (2009) represent stylistic crossovers, which enjoy international recognition. Since 2012 she is also a member of Iiro Rantala String Trio. The native of Croatia works as an arranger, composer and lecturer. "As a musician, who grew up in chamber music, Asja Valcic imbues her jazz with powerful and unusual vitality," according to a review in the British GUARDIAN. "Valcic's cello emits everything that fingers and bows can entice from strings: everything from stunning bass pizzicati to whispering flageolets," writes the BADISCHE ZEITUNG. "She is a cunningly smooth instrumentalist," emphasizes the culture magazine, MIKADO (Hessischer Rundfunk). Since 2007 have been released 10 CD’s with Asja Valcic at ACT.

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