KLAUS PAIER accordion, bandoneon 2.7. - 5.7. 2007 280€

Klaus Paier began tentatively exploring the accordion at the age of eight. "The sound of the instrument and the transparency of playing it was always a priority for me. But you can only accomplish this by means of very specific coordination of the bellows and specially customized arrangements. This was the only way I was able to liberate the instrument from its characteristic fuzziness of phrasing and density of sound”, Klaus Paier describes his playing style. He studied accordion, jazz and composition at Klagenfurt conservatory, constantly experimenting during this time in various styles (classical, jazz, contemporary music) and, as of 1993, consistently carrying out his own projects.
When asked which form of music has influenced him most strongly, Klaus Paier answers, "Jazz and tango gave me the freedom to develop my own language of music”. Paier has been particularly inspired by such instrumentalists as Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans, Charles Mingus or Thelonious Monk. Continuing his search for a very individual form of expression on the accordion, Klaus Paier later discovered Dino Saluzzi, then – through him – Astor Piazzolla’s Tango Nuevo and, from there, the bandoneon, an instrument he is now using more and more often. Paier sees tango in itself more as an element of style. He uses it as a kind of projection surface for his musical inventiveness. But the historically evolved European sounds of the accordion have also featured in his playing and his compositions: Le voyage à Paris, Musette Waltz (France), Tarantella (Italy), Bulgarian Dance (Balkans), are just a few examples of Paier’s integrative diversity of composition in this field. Through his collaboration with a string quartet, and inspired by his in-depth study of Bela Bartok, Claude Debussy and Erik Satie, the classical component came to play an important role in Paier’s musical explorations (compositions such as Chambre trois, Tres Sentimientos). The accordionist processes experimental and contemporary elements above all in a duo with saxophonist Gerald Preinfalk.