Luka Juhart - Deconstructing Accordion (2014)

Luka Juhart is musician, fabulous accordion player and music teacher. There is a determination, a stubborn conviction even, in everything he does. For a number of years now, he has been tirelessly devoted to collaborating with contemporary composers, commissioning their new works, entering into a creative dialogue with them, producing to date, either alone or in various ensembles, over 40 premieres of new pieces.

His approach to contemporary music in any case forswears any closure, and as an accordionist he has never operated merely in the space prescribed by the institution of Central European music tradition. He has already delved into contemporary free improvisation, a musical undertaking that transposes a musican trained to render written-down music perfectly into entirely unpredictable situations, confronting him with hitherto unknown risks. Part of his opting out from music specialization is also his interest in composition, out of which, in 2013, the piece hrUP for accordion emerged.

Luka Juhart is presenting compositions written for him, compositions which he had co-created or co-revised, and compositions which have influenced him. There is communication between the composer and the musician, except that Luka goes a crucial step further; he goes even deeper into the musical work, presenting in his first score hrUP (noise) his own creative impulses.

The accordion’s new sound profile builds on ideas which are not so much new as they are pushed, unjustly so, to the margins of the instrument’s sound potential, where they have remained unused or even hidden somewhere between the air buttons, valves, reeds and bellows.