Complete audio and video recordings of the concert can be found on the Roulette website HERE. You can download the program booklet HERE.
Guy Klucevsek passed away on May 22, 2025. A group of Guy’s closest friends immediately began planning the tribute concert in his memory. Led by his wife Jan, the planners were Nathan Koci, Jerome Kitzke, Joseph Franklin, and Tony Creamer. I volunteered to do publicity.
Joseph and I arrived in Philadelphia on February 19, 2026. Then on the 22nd came the blizzard of 2026, unofficially named by the media as Winter Storm Hernando.
The storm dropped 1–2 feet of snow across the megalopolis from Philadelphia to Boston over the next three days. Mayor Mamdani announced public school closures and a citywide travel ban. Crews in Philly cleared the roads and Amtrak brought us to New York on the day of the concert.
Lots of family, friends and composers were in the audience. People came from all over the world to honor Guy. Former Relache marketing director, Drew Keegan, came up from Philly to help me hand out programs. Lois V Vierk took the subway, Mary Ellen Childs flew in from Venice, clarinetist Wes Hall drove from Feasterville, PA, Tom Steenland traveled from Boulder, CO.
Thirty-one works were played by 24 of Guy’s friends and collaborators. Ain’t Nothin’ But a Polka Band opened the concert with the same line-up they had in 1988. John King, who played electric guitar, has barely changed since we worked together in 1995 at Atlantic Center for the Arts. Other band members were bassist Dave Hofstra and drummer Bill Ruyle. Alex Meixner played Guy’s usually deadpan role with way more expression!
Guy composed music for Relache during and after his time in the group. They played two pieces to end the first half. There were two players still in the band since I left in 1998, Chuck Holdeman, playing a mean bassoon and Lloyd Shorter, as brilliant as ever on oboe and English horn. When I met Ray Bohn, a student of our bass player Douglas Mapp, I said “I just realized Relache is 48 years old!” Ray said, “That’s older than me.”
Concert review by Kurt Gottschalk - The Wire/ On Location
It’s an evening full of short compositions, 31 of them in all, moving along like a tight two step. It’s also an evening put together with care: a glossy, full-colour programme is handed out on entry and another book of Klucevsek compositions is available free of charge to anyone who wants it. There’s no door charge and the house is full.
With all of the reminiscences offered, it doesn’t feel like a night about musical highlights. But if it were, the duet of accordionist Will Holshouser and saxophonist Phillip Johnston would surely be one. They play a couple of short songs, “Spin Cycle” and “Tulips Are Better Than One”, with warped oompahs and irregular melody lines. The first half ends with the longstanding Philadelphia contemporary ensemble Relache playing two works Klucevsek wrote for their unusual instrumentation of reeds and double reeds, strings, flute, percussion and keyboards.
Bantam Orchestra, photo by Laurel Wyckoff
The music sometimes seems familiar, like a show tune or a holiday song, but only for a moment; it’s not the song, it’s all in the feeling. The high point of the second half is a rare vocal piece, “Donut Ask, Donut Tell”. It was sung by cellist Margaret Parkins on the 1996 album Stolen Memories, but tonight violinist Abby Swidler delivers, join(ing) the four-piece Bantam Orchestra in an altogether affable rendition.
Despite the barely forgivable title, it’s a touching, up tempo tune about sitting at a coffee shop by the water, with all the tunefulness and lyrical finesse of a Bacharach song, but with city grit.
Cup is empty, still I don’t move Doing nothing’s kind of a groove Coast guard cutter’s heading upstream An oil spill it would seem The water’s covered with slime Fill up my cup one more time My doughnut’s starting to ooze.
It’s a song that could make a person stop and appreciate this life we have. ●
Article by Laurel Wyckoff, former flutist with the Relache Ensemble
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