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Geir Draugsvoll

accordion
Jo Selsing
Geir Draugsvoll was born in 1967 in Voss, Norway, and played the classical accordion from the age of eight - "for me, it became the gateway to a totally different world than the one offered by games and sports", he once stated in an interview. From 1986 to 1992 he studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Music under Mogens Ellegaard, and already during his student years he built up an extensive career as a concert soloist as well as close relationships with several Danish composers.
Today he occupies an established position as the outstanding young classical accordion soloist in Scandinavia. In a review of Draugsvoll's conservatory debut in 1992, Danish music critic Peter Woetmann wrote in the newspaper Berlingske Tidende that he is "...a musician of poetry. He has a way of using total concentration to penetrate the music of silence. The music is set forth as if from a distant world, gentle and crisp, and takes on form, is brought to life, through lines constructed by way of the most subtle control over the weight and dynamics of every single note. He can make his instrument sing quietly with the music surrounded by a glow of its own. At the same time, the virtuosity of his playing is incredible: the music flows lightly across foundation pillars of rhythm and sound control, so much so that in the end everything falls assuredly into place. At times it is so brilliant that one loses one's breath".
Apart from giving solo and orchestral concerts, Geir Draugsvoll makes up the classical accordion duo The Classical Accordion Duo together with James Crabb. He appeared during the autumn of 1995 with the leading Danish performance group Hotel Pro Forma in the multi-media show Dust (Wau!) Støv.
  • Niels Rosing-Schow

    Winds and Percussion

  • Klaus Ib Jørgensen

    ... and the lotus rose, quietly, quietly ...

  • Andy Pape, Ejnar Kanding, Ivar Frounberg, Mogens Winkel Holm, Klaus Ib Jørgensen, Leif Kayser

    Works for Classical Accordion

  • Ivar Frounberg

    Orchestral Works