GrauSchumacher Piano Duo

Andreas Grau • Götz Schumacher

“With their sublime and explosive recordings, Andreas Grau and Götz Schumacher have established themselves as the world’s leading piano duo, only comparable to the legendary Kontarsky brothers – but even in this comparison GrauSchumacher’s interpretational skill leaves the Kontarsky brothers in the dust.”
Fonoforum

Andreas Grau and Götz Schumacher, with their talent for putting together clever and innovative programmes, have established themselves as one of the world’s top piano duos. Their collaboration at the piano is evidence that the two expert pianists are nothing short of musical soul mates.

The vast breadth of the duo’s expressiveness has garnered it invitations to various festivals and concert halls, such as the Cologne Philharmonie, Berlin Philharmonie, Cité de la Musique Paris, Schwetzinger Festspiele, Salzburg Festival, Tonhalle Zurich and the Piano Festival La Roque d’Anthéron, and has resulted in partnerships with renowned conductors such as Michael Gielen, Lothar Zagrosek, Emanuel Krivine, Heinz Holliger, Kent Nagano, Bertrand de Billy, Andrej Boreyko, Georges Prêtre and Zubin Mehta.

Their most recent projects have included concerts with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and the Radio Symphony Orchestras of BR, WDR, HR, NDR and SWR, the Bavarian State Orchestra Munich, Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, as well as performances at the Rheingau Music Festival, Klarafestival Brussels, Wigmore Hall London, Gewandhaus Leipzig, Konzerthaus Vienna, Mozarteum Salzburg, De Doelen Rotterdam, Handelsbeurs Ghent and the Concertgebouw Bruges. Through their performances of well-known orchestral concertos by composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Béla Bartók and Francis Poulenc, the GrauSchumacher Piano Duo is always striving for new ways to extend the repertoire for two pianos and orchestra. They have, for example, initiated an arrangement by Stefan Heucke of Franz Liszt’s famous “Concerto Pathétique” (originally for two pianos) for two pianos and orchestra. Inspired by the duo’s virtuosic and delicate playing, some of the most important contemporary composers have written new concertos for Andreas Grau and Götz Schumacher, most recently Peter Eötvös, Philippe Manoury, Jan Müller-Wieland and Luca Francesconi. Concerning their artistic work in the field of recitals the Duo is constantly premiering new works, last of Hanspeter Kyburz, Bernd Richard Deutsch, Britta Muntendorf and Philippe Manoury.

Their keen ability to conceive carefully considered programmes is also evident in their numerous recordings which appear, among others, in their own series on Neos. Their album of Stockhausen's “Mantra” won awards from Le monde de la musique and Diapason. Gramophone selected their CD “Visions de l’Amen”, featuring works by Olivier Messiaen and Heinrich Schütz / György Kurtág, as Editor’s Choice. The duo has also made recordings of Luciano Berio’s orchestral works and Stravinsky’s “Sacre du Printemps” that were highly celebrated by critics. Their Concerti series with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, which already includes “Concerti I” (Mozart, Bartók, Liszt) and “Concerti II” (Liszt/Heucke, Bach, Stravinsky), will now be completed with “Concerti III”. The new CD with works by Francis Poulenc, Colin McPhee and John Adams will be released in the current season.

www.grau-schumacher.de

As of June 2016