Andreas Grau · Götz Schumacher Andreas Grau and Götz Schumacher met in Reutlingen in 1981 at the age of 15 and 16 through their piano teacher at the time, Friedemann Rieger, and have worked together continuously ever since. Apart from their studies at the Dortmund, Frankfurt and Stuttgart colleges of music, they also received lessons from Renate Werner, the Kontarsky Brothers, as well as studying in Paris with Claude Helffer. Having won several prizes at the beginning of the nineties, they soon had a busy concert schedule within Germany and abroad. Today, the GrauSchumacher Piano Duo is one of the most prolific piano duos worldwide, and a regular guest at many important festivals and concert halls, including the Schwetzinger SWR Festspiele, Berliner Festspiele, Ultraschall, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Berliner Philharmonie, Kölner Philharmonie, Rheingau Music Festival, KlavierFestival Ruhr, Lucerne Festival, Salzburg Festival, Beethovenfest Bonn, Festival La Roque d’Anthéron and Cité de la Musique. The Duo frequently works together with such renowned conductors as Michael Gielen, Lothar Zagrosek, Emanuel Krivine, Heinz Holliger, Bertrand de Billy, Andrej Boreyko, David Robertson, Georges Prêtre and Zubin Mehta, as well as with orchestras such as the DSO Berlin, NDR Symphony Orchestra, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, RSO Stuttgart, Bayerisches Staatsorchester, RSO Wien and Orchestre National de Lyon. An integral aspect of their programmatic conception is the juxtaposition of tradition and modernity. For this reason, Andreas Grau and Götz Schumacher maintain an active dia-logue with contemporary composers such as Peter Eötvös, Wolfgang Rihm or Karlheinz Stockhausen († 2007), who worked in close collaboration with the Duo throughout the development of his monumental MANTRA for two pianists. The Duo’s constantly expanding discography bears witness to an artistic openness, which is inspired by their search for stimulating repertoire. The works range from those of composers Heinrich Schütz, Henry Purcell and Johann Sebastian Bach, and of the Classical and Romantic periods, through to the great works of the modern age and avant-garde by Olivier Messiaen, György Ligeti, George Crumb, John Cage and Bernd Alois Zimmermann. At the same time, projects that incorporate other art forms are just as important to the musicians as the works for two pianos and orchestra. Most recently, the duo collaborated with the esteemed actor Klaus Maria Brandauer in an adaptation of Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. <a href="https://www.last.fm/music/GrauSchumacher+Piano+Duo">Read more on Last.fm</a>. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.