GrauSchumacher - piano duo

Andreas Grau and Götz Schumacher, with their talent for putting together clever and innovative programs, have established themselves as one of the world's top piano duos. Their cooperation 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 Kölner Philharmonie, Berliner Philharmonie, Cité de la Musique Paris, Schwetzinger Festspiele, Salzburger Festspiele, Tonhalle Zürich, and the Piano Festival La Roque d'Anthéron, and has resulted in collaborations 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.

The pair's most recent projects have included concerts with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, Bavarian State Orchestra, Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Orchestre National de Lyon, as well as performances at the Lucerne Festival, the Wiener Konzerthaus, and the Concertgebouw Brugge.

Andreas Grau and Götz Schumacher kicked off the 2011/2012 concert season with a very successful performance of Peter Eötvös' Concerto for two pianos and orchestra at the opening concert of the Biennale di Venezia with the SWR Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden and Freiburg under the baton of the composer himself. Peter Eötvös was presented with the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement during the event. In the coming months, the GrauSchumacher Piano Duo will perform throughout Europe, including concerts at the Kölner Philharmonie, Beethovenhaus Bonn, Krakau Philharmonic, and at festivals such as the Rheingau Musikfestival, Feldkirch Festival or the Festival Musica Strasbourg.

Their keen ability to conceive well-considered program concepts is also evident in their recordings. 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 Messiaen and Schütz/Kurtág, as Editor's Choice. Other CDs they have released over the past several years include Mehrere kurze Walzer (Schubert, Brahms, Grieg, Hindemith, Rihm), Variations and Fugues (Mozart, Reger, Beethoven), Fantasia contrappuntistica (Bach Kurtág, Busoni), Ligeti-Schubert-Ligeti, Grand Duo (Schubert, Schostakowitsch), and La musique creuse le ciel (Wolfgang Rihm). The duo has also made recordings of Luciano Berio's orchestral works and Stravinsky's Sacre du Printemps that were highly celebrated by critics. Two more CDs were published in the concert season 2010/11: Schrift-Um-Schrift (Bartók and Rihm), and Concerti I featuring concertos for two pianos by Mozart and Bartók, as well as the contrasting Concerto Pathétique by Franz Liszt in collaboration with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin.