This is a composition that incorporated two parts Jean Michel-Jarre and one part my brother, Mario Peretiatko. Jean's pieces are the book-ends and Mario did the main piece. I remember working with Mario doing his piece back in 1994 or thereabout. It was done on a Casio keyboard and was a moody little piece. My part now was to recreate Jean's two pieces, pop in a shorter version of Mario's song, and basically try to keep it French. Doreen Kool came up with the title Plein Air (think French Impressionists) and, in the end, it was one big collaboration.
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Actually, my brother had a Casio which is still under the couch where he lives, covered in dust. My brother and I used to get teased that we were the Schmenge Brothers playing polkas to whoever came to our house... and that was partially true because our parents were proud to see us perform for guests. We used to play polkas like “She's Too Fat For Me,” “Beer Barrel Polka” and others. It was fun but also very uncool – I mean Jimi Hendrix and Michael Jackson didn't play accordion! But it gave us our first step in music. We would also play mazurkas too, an east European favorite. My brother composed the French-sounding middle section and my mother would say we might be related to some Frenchman who ended up in Yugoslavia during the war. I don't know if it is true or not. And yet my brother pulled the French stuff out of somewhere that wasn't from the Schmenge Brothers' background. Incidentally, I had to fix some notes in the Equinox section that were wrong. So now it's fine and sounds alright.