Accordion Tribe were an international accordion

Accordion

The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....

 group featuring Bratko Bibič

Bratko Bibic

Bratko Bibič is a Slovenian accordionist.Bibič first came to prominence as a rock musician, playing in the ensembles Begnagrad and Nimal in the 1980s; both groups were pivotal on the rock scene blending Slavic folk music with art rock...

 (Slovenia), Lars Hollmer

Lars Hollmer

Lars Gustav Gabriel Hollmer was a Swedish accordionist, keyboardist and composer whose work draws on influences ranging from Nordic folk tunes to progressive rock. He has been a member and/or founder of over half a dozen groups, most of whose work has been recorded at The Chickenhouse, his well...

 (Sweden), Maria Kalaniemi

Maria Kalaniemi

Maria Kalaniemi is a Finnish accordionist. She was originally classically trained, but has become mostly as folk musician having played this music from childhood, besides her classical music studies, and also at the folk music department of the Sibelius Academy.Groups she is or has been involved...

 (Finland), Guy Klucevsek

Guy Klucevsek

Guy Klucevsek is an American-born accordionist and composer.Klucevsek is one of relatively few accordion players active in jazz and free improvisation....

 (USA/Slovenia) and Otto Lechner

Otto Lechner

Otto Lechner is an Austrian accordionist.Lechner taught himself to play the accordion starting at age four. He has been blind since age 15. Lechner is currently a member of the group Accordion Tribe and musical director of two ensembles in Vienna, Otto's Jazz Ensemble and Das Erste Wiener Strenge...

 (Austria). They have recorded three albums, have toured Europe several times and played in Victoriaville (QC) Canada in 1998.

In 2006 the third Accordion Tribe album, Lunghorn Twist, recorded in Uppsala at Lars Hollmer's Chickenhouse studios was picked in Songlines Magazine "Top of the World" chart.

Biography

In Ghent

Ghent

Ghent is a city and a municipality located in the Flemish region of Belgium. It is the capital and biggest city of the East Flanders province. The city started as a settlement at the confluence of the Rivers Scheldt and Lys and in the Middle Ages became one of the largest and richest cities of...

, Belgium

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

 in May 1996, five internationally respected accordionists convened to form an ensemble that would explore the use of the instrument in different cultures and musical contexts. They rehearsed for three days and performed in Vooruit

Vooruit

Vooruit Arts Center is a historic complex in the Belgian city of Ghent. Vooruit was originally the festival and art center of the Ghent labor movement, with a ballroom, cinema, theater, etc...

, following it with a three-week European tour. Their performances were recorded, and a self-titled album was culled from the results.

In 1998, Klucevsek put together Accordion Tribe II, with Alan Bern

Alan Bern

Alan Bern , born and raised in Bloomington, Indiana, is the musical director of Brave Old World, and remains one of the leading lights in the teaching and revival of Yiddish music in the US, Canada, and Europe since the early 1980s.-Life:...

, Amy Denio

Amy Denio

Amy Denio is a Seattle -based multi-instrumental composer of soundtracks for modern dance, film and theater, as well as a songwriter and music improviser. Often called an unclassifiable avant-garde jazz musician, she is also deeply inspired by world music. She is probably best known as a...

, and Pauline Oliveros

Pauline Oliveros

Pauline Oliveros is an American accordionist and composer who is a central figure in the development of post-war electronic art music....

, again touring Europe and prompting a reunion of the original ensemble.

In 2010 Klucevsek announced that he had decided to let the group come to an end as an ongoing project but did not rule out the possibility of a reunion concert in the future.

Film

Accordion Tribe - Music Travels is a German-language

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 documentary film

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

about the band, produced by Maximage of Switzerland and written and directed by Stefan Schwietert. It premiered in January 2004. In 2005 it won the Swiss Film Prize for the Best Documentary, as well as the documentary film prize at the Würzburg International Filmweekend. The film features the life of the band on the road and in concert, as well as exploring each individual member in their homelands.

External links

• Accordion Tribe homepage