Vision for Two - 10 Years by Klaus Paier & Asja Valcic

Klaus Paier & Asja Valcic

Vision for Two - 10 Years

Format: CD
Label: ACT music
UPC: 0614427988720
Catnr: ACT 98872
Release date: 30 August 2019
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Label
ACT music

UPC
0614427988720

Catalogue number
ACT 98872

Release date
30 August 2019

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

About the album

Accordionist Klaus Paier and cellist Asja Valcic have been making music as a duo for ten years. Their playing has kept audiences delighted and critics enthralled: “Breathtaking”, said the magazine Der Spiegel; they are “a captivating match” (The Guardian). Their journey together began in 2009 with their debut album “À Deux”, and since then Paier and Valcic have proceeded to make their unique accordion-plus-cello sound into a thing of wonder.

This tenth anniversary album “Vision for Two – 10 Years” is to some extent a conspectus, but also shows how this visionary duo continues to reinvent themselves and refresh their outlook. A panoply of what they have achieved musically is right there from the start of the title track. Both Paier and Valcic have their musical origins in the classical domain, but have moved on from it in a spirit of stylistic openness, and found a musical language which is theirs yet universal. The sound is always their starting point: they have a finesse and eloquence from classical music, combined with the free-thinking, quicksilver instinctiveness of jazz, and influences from many parts of the world. What results is capacious, widescreen music, a multi-layered and fascinating sound world in which Paier and Valcic invite listeners to immerse themselves.

The tracks of “Vision for Two” demonstrate this duo’s unique compositional talent and creativity – and also their capacity to dream. “Straight Thirteen” has an infectious groove, its repeated melodic hook set against a lively asymmetric beat. “Angela” has a melancholy and dramatic feel, “Hidden Thread” has impressionistic colours, and “A Love’s Delight” more than a hint of South America. While Valcic salutes Debussy, Paier pays a swinging homage to Mozart. The album comes to a close with the bandoneon ballad “El Alba”. But just before that final tune there is a short, highly percussive Latin blues number, and ist title neatly sums up where Paier and Valcic now see themselves as they mark a decade of music-making: “Moving On”. They have indeed achieved remarkable things through their vision of dialogue and interplay – and intend to do much more.

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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