Stevan Knezevich

Stevan Knezevich is a Canadian accordionist and arranger of Russian, Ukrainian, Jewish, and Slavic folk music.

Early interest in music

Stevan was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. He began playing the accordion at age 5. He also got an early start in piano, and completed the Royal Conservatory of Toronto's Performer's Associateship. At 12, he was working for the Dovbush Ukrainian Dance Ensemble as accompanist. Through this work he was exposed to professional dance instructors and bayanists from the Ukraine and Russia. Famous bayanists from Ukraine and Russia, including Bohdan Parumba and Viatcheslav Semionov had Steven accompany them on his accordion.

Music career

During his high school years, Stevan toured Canada and the US with the Dovbosh Ensemble and Russian dance group Yablochko. Through these tour performances he met many other groups who enlisted his services as accompanist, including St. Sava Serbian Dance Group (junior and senior groups), Cheremshyna Ukrainian Dancers (now known as the Trepak Ensemble), Druzhba (the junior Ukrainian group associated with the Dovbush Dancers) and a fledgling Greek ensemble.

Stevan was also in a Jewish quartet called Tum Balalaika from 1997 to 1999. They produced and recorded a CD entitled "um Balalaika, A Shared Heritage", which featured Stevan's repertoire and expertise in rare Russian and Ukrainian music. This CD included overlapping themes and melodies from Russian, Ukrainian and Jewish music.

Recordings

Stevan has arranged, recorded, and produced a solo album entitled "Slavik", which contains material from his 15 year career. Music from this CD has had air time on CBC Radio's "Fresh Air" and "Global Village".

Stevan produced, recorded, engineered, mastered and did the graphics for a double album called "Slavik" with folk music and dances from various Slavic countries such as Belarus, Czech Republic, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Serbia and Ukraine. Stevan plays the acoustic accordion, no electric devices.

Personal life

Stevan has a B.Sc. in Biochemistry and a Ph.D. in Pathology and Laboratory Medicine from the University of British Columbia. He has worked as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the British Columbia Cancer Agency where he has done molecular genetic research on lymphomas. Stevan has also received an M.D. from the University of Toronto as well as further training at Washington University in St. Louis.