As artists-in-residence with the Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto at Casa da Música in 2022, the duo presented its stylistic expertise from classical to contemporary music: throughout the year, Andreas Grau and Götz Schumacher performed concertos by Bach, Mendelssohn, Poulenc, and Wolfgang Rihm, working with conductors such as Michael Sanderling, Sylvain Cambreling, and Rebecca Tong. Further appearances in the current season include the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Liederhalle Stuttgart and the Teatro Petruzelli as well as the KunstFestSpiele Herrenhausen, the Schwetzinger SWR Festspiele or the Ruhr Piano Festival.
Through their performances of well-known orchestral concertos, 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 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, such as Peter Eötvös, Philippe Manoury, Jan Müller-Wieland, Luca Francesconi and Isabel Mundry. The duo also regularly performs new recital works, most recently by Brigitta Muntendorf, Bernd Richard Deutsch, and Johannes Maria Staud.
The duo’s wide-ranging and multi-faceted interpretations have led to ongoing invitations to international festivals and concert halls, as well as collaborations with renowned conductors such as Michael Gielen, Markus Stenz, Emanuel Krivine, Kent Nagano, Andrej Boreyko, Georges Prêtre, and Zubin Mehta. As soloists, they have played with all of the German Radio Symphony Orchestras, the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, as well as at the Enescu Festival Bucharest, the Ruhr Piano Festival, Rheingau Music Festival, at London’s Wigmore Hall, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Kölner Philharmonie, Gewandhaus Leipzig, Wiener Konzerthaus, Tonhalle Zürich, Franz Liszt Academy Budapest, Suntory Hall Tokyo, De Doelen Rotterdam, and the Concertgebouw Bruges.
In addition to their recital and orchestral appearances, Andreas Grau and Götz Schumacher also regularly realise interdisciplinary art and music projects. For example, they intensified their collaboration with actor Ulrich Noethen and have recently created new projects in addition to their acclaimed Schubert programme, such as Stefan Litwin’s monodrama based on Jean Paul’s Flegeljahre, or a new Shostakovich programme based on Julian Barnes’ novel The Noise of Time. The duo also continues its long-standing collaboration with Klaus Maria Brandauer, performing Mozart’s Freedom and Midsummernight’s Dream at various festivals in Germany.
The duo’s carefully considered programmes are also a hallmark of their numerous recordings, released, among others, on the label Neos, where they have their own series. Their most recent recordings include the CD Fantasias, with works by Schubert, Purcell/Kurtág, Mozart/Busoni, Scriabin, and Rachmaninov (“A reference recording!”, Fono Forum), as well as the Concerti I-III series recorded with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin featuring works from Bach and Mozart to Adams. After being awarded the German Record Critics’ Award in 2019 for their recording of Philippe Manoury’s large-scale Le temps, mode d’emploi, the duo received the coveted award again in 2021 for Christophe Bertrand’s piano concerto Vertigo with the WDR Symphony Orchestra under Peter Rundel.
