PIANO DUO FESTIVAL #3 - DAY 2

PIANO DUO FESTIVAL #3 - DAY 2Piano Duo Festival fo Improvised & Experimental Music ———-———-Set 1: Uli Gumpert + Oliver Schwerdt Set 2: Eli Wallace + Anaïs Tuerlinckx Set 3: Jordina Millà + Sten Sandell ———-———-The Piano Duo Festival Berlin is dedicated to free and experimental improvisation on two grand pianos. Pianists from Berlin and abroad come together in an unconventional setting that differs from the traditional concert circuit, engaging in a musical dialogue without any predetermined stylistic constraints. The festival aims both to attract newcomers to the genre and to appeal to the regular audience of the classical, contemporary, jazz and improvisation scenes.———-———-Biography’s (short version)Oliver Schwerdt (*1979) is the director of EUPHORIUM_freakestra, a project ensemble founded in Eisenach in 1999 and developed in Leipzig. On his curated label EUPHORIUM, his contemporary improvised music has been released in collaborations with such illustrious founding fathers of free jazz as Peter Brötzmann, Leo Smith, Barre Phillips and Akira Sakata, central figures of the second generation such as Axel Dörner, Urs Leimgruber and Roger Turner, as well as younger musicians such as John Dikeman and Julian Sartorius. His collaboration with Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky and Christian Lillinger, realised between 2006 and 2016, attracted particular attention. Schwerdt’s greatest devotion, however, is to Günter Sommer: after receiving his doctorate in 2012 for research into Sommer’s instruments and playing techniques, he has been working biographically since 2020 with the aid of an exceptionally rich collection of source material. Now, for the first time, he encounters Sommer’s long-time partner Ulrich Gumpert in artistic collaboration.———-———-Ulrich Gumpert Born in Jena in 1945. First piano lessons with his father, Willy. In 1961, he began studying in Weimar, majoring in French horn. In 1964, he was expelled because of ML. In 1967, he began studying piano in Berlin, but discontinued his studies in 1968. Ulrich Gumpert developed a distinctive personal style by drawing on his experience of jazz and European music history in an original way. From 1967, he played in various bands led by Klaus Lenz. In 1971, he co-founded the jazz-rock formation SOK. In 1973, he received his professional musician’s licence and, in the same year, co-founded SYNOPSIS, from which ZENTRALQUARTETT emerged in 1984. From 1972 onwards, he worked with WORKSHOPBANDS in changing line-ups and in a DUO with Günter “Baby” Sommer. He toured with Peter Brötzmann, Peter Kowald, Harry Miller and Louis Moholo, among others. This was followed by work with Thomas Brasch, Peter Brasch and Jochen Berg.rom 1991 onwards, he composed FILM MUSIC in collaboration with Matti Geschonneck, including for several episodes of the Tatort crime series featuring Inspector Markowitz. In 2005, he received the “Albert Mangelsdorff Prize” (German Jazz Award). In 2010, he performed at the “Berlin New York” Festival at the Irondale Culture Center in New York. He remains active as a concert musician to this day.———-———-Sten Sandell: Composer / musician / producer - piano, organ, voice, electronics, Sound/Text/Image Real-Time Composer, Doctor of Philosophy In Fine Arts in Musical Performance and Interpretation. Freelancer with Musician/composer: Mats Äleklint, Johannes Nästesjö, Niklas Fite, Lise-Lotte Norelius, Sören Runolf, Tone Åse, Alex Nowitz, Lotte Anker, Jon Fält, Eva Lindal, Chris Cutler, Nina de Heney, Sofia Jernberg, Sven-Åke Johansson, Paal Nilssen-Love, Evan Parker, Mats Persson, Phil Wachsmann, Paul Lytton, Mats Gustafsson, Roscoe Mitchell and Raymond Strid, among others. Music and Visual arts, Lina Nordenström, Jan-Bertil Andersson, Inger Arvidsson, Katarina Eismann, Bo Samuelsson, Gunnar Nehls. Music and Dance, Ingrid Olterman, Nathalie Ruiz, Bo Arenander, Jukka Korpi, Helena Franzén. Music and Drama, Fredrik Nyberg, Willy Kyrklund, Stina Ekblad, Magnus Florin, Jörgen Gassilewski, Magnus Jacobsson, Peter Oskarson, Rolf Skoglund and Lars Wassrin. Concerts, Performances in Europe, North America, Australia and Asia 1976-2026.———-———- Anaïs Tuerlinckx is an experimental pianist from Brussels based in Berlin. She desarticulates the instrument and takes its core, the frame, the strings as main sonic material for her practice. Her playing has its roots in free improvisation, being inspired by different aesthetics going through contemporary music, free jazz, noise and electro-acoustic music. She moved to Berlin in 2008, attracted by the local improvised music scene. Tending to a rather physical and expending way of playing, her performances are characterized by a decidedly harsh and noisy but at the same time elegiac, breezy and spacious sound. ———-———- Eli Wallace is a pianist, improviser, and composer who resides in Brooklyn, NY, where he envisions his own projects and collaborates with like-minded artists. His work as a pianist displays a proclivity for non-idiomatic free improvisation, incorporating vast and elaborate piano preparations that John Lewis (The Guardian) describes as "...pushing the boundaries of the prepared piano." His compositions employ conceptual and notational strategies to broaden the ways in which musicians produce sound and interact with one another. Over the past decade, he appeared on countless albums on labels such as Infrequents Seams, Notice Recordings, Dinzu Artefacts, Leo Records, Tripticks Tapes, and performed at venues such as Roulette (Brooklyn, NY), Bemis Center (Omaha, NE), Mizzou International Composers Festival (Columbia, MO), Echoraum (Vienna, Austria), and Cave 12 (Geneva, Switzerland). Additionally, he continues to tour worldwide, performing solo and with established ensembles, as well as teaming up with musicians from around the globe. His sophomore solo piano album, Peregrine, is scheduled for release by Protomaterial Records in Fall 2026.———-———-Jordina Millà: pianist, composer, and improviser, explores free improvised music and contemporary language. Introduced to the world of improvisation by Agustí Fernández, her music is in constant development, moving toward new logics of expression. She has released acclaimed albums, including Males herbes (solo album), When Forests Dream (a two-piano collaboration with Agustí Fernández), String Fables (a duo with Barry Guy), and Live in Munich on ECM Records. In 2024, she was nominated for the Best Newcomer award at the Jazz Prize Österreich. She was awarded the Staatsstipendium für Komposition 2025, granted by BMKÖS. A member of Barry Guy’s The Blue Shroud Band and other formations, she performs with musicians such as Mats Gustafsson, dieb13, Camila Nebbia, Vini Cajado, Maurizio Takara, Gonçalo Almeida, Almut Kühne, Wieland Möller, Kenji Herbert, Lucas Niggli, Axel Dörner, Sofia Labropoulou, Christian Reiner, Lukas König, among others.———-———-Tickets are available online and at the entrance. €30 – Regular Premium (Reserved Seating) €25 – Regular €15–25 – Reduced (only at the door)Crowdfunding Link: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-realize-the-3rd-berlin-piano-duo-festivalVenue: https://exploratorium-berlin.de/en/events/stage/piano-duo-festival-day-1/. Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.de/e/piano-duo-festival-3-tickets-2000725380471?aff=oddtdtcreator