Piano Duo Festival #3

The Piano Duo Festival for Improvised & Experimental Music 2026 will take place on November 4 and 5 at exploratorium berlin, presenting three outstanding piano duos each evening, with pianists travelling from Austria, Sweden, the USA, Germany and Switzerland.

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Piano Duo Festival #3 Day 1

Set 1: Elias Stemeseder + Georg Vogel
Set 2: Hada Benedito + Luca Manzo
Set 3: Sylvia Bruckner + Niko Meinhold

Piano Duo Festival #3 Day 2

Set 1: Uli Gumpert + Oliver Schwerdt
Set 2: Eli Wallace + Anaïs Tuerlinckx
Set 3: Jordina Millà + Sten Sandell

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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.

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Biography’s (short version)

Elias Stemeseder (born in Salzburg) is a pianist/keyboardist, electronic musician and composer. His work focuses on connecting processes, disciplines and tools from different temporal and geographical origins, and on developing new sonic and process-based approaches from these connections.
Stemeseder performs regularly with Georg Vogel, STEMESEDER–LILLINGER, Neon Dilemma, WRENS, the Elias Stemeseder Trio and Thomas Morgan, and has collaborated with artists including Laurie Anderson, John Zorn, Craig Taborn and Peter Evans. From 2016 to 2024, he was a member of the Jim Black Trio, appearing on four albums. His recent releases include the UMBRA trilogy, NEON DILEMMA I & II, PIANO SOLO and DDIOFEO with Georg Vogel. He was Artist in Residence at The Stone NYC in 2022, won the 2023 German Jazz Prize for Pianist/Keyboardist of the Year, and was commissioned by Roulette Intermedium and nominated for the German Jazz Prize for Composition of the Year in 2025.

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Georg Vogel (born in Salzburg) is a pianist/keyboardist, composer and instrument builder. As the composer for his ensembles, he has written more than eighty works in various tuning systems for newly developed enharmonic instruments. He also publishes writings on music theory and gives lectures on musical tuning systems, intonation, pitch and rhythmic systems, and their relationship to compositional and improvisational techniques.
Georg Vogel performs with ELIAS STEMESEDER & GEORG VOGEL, the 31-tone band DSILTON, GVT TRIO, ZENÇIR, VOGEL/LETTNER and GEOGEMA, as well as solo on piano and Claviton, a 31-tone instrument he developed and built himself. Recent releases include GEORG VOGEL OGILSD VOBI and ZENÇIR (2025), GEORG VOGEL PIANO SOLO and VOGEL/LETTNER OHHNETT (2024), GVT TRIO NARRISCH, DSILTON and GEOGEMA Vol. 2 (2023), and ELIAS STEMESEDER & GEORG VOGEL DDIOFEO (2022).

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Hada Benedito Mateo is a trained pianist and multifaceted musician based in Berlin. She led the Berlin Soundpainting Orchestra for a decade, becoming a familiar figure in the free music scene while performing worldwide.
Her work focuses on free improvised music, live silent film soundtracks, interdisciplinary collaborations and sound trips for people of all ages. With a particular emphasis on the prepared piano, she creates playful soundscapes by integrating objects, electronics, and a variety of unconventional instruments. Hada Benedito has been awarded grants by institutions such as the Akademie der Künste (2022) and Musikfonds e.V. (2023) to develop new formats for making music with children and to expand her practice as a solo performer. In 2024, she created underwater performance works as part of the Liquid Sound Residency, and in 2025 she received a working grant with the Red Color Trio.

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Luca Manzo (1999) studied at the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana (Lugano, CH) with Mauro Harsch and at the Musik-Akademie Basel (CH) with Andrea Neumann. The Italian pianist and improviser works across contemporary and classical repertoire, free improvisation and interdisciplinary performance. His recent work explores the expressive potential of the piano through collaborations with dancers (Étude, quasi Allegro, L’Effimera Festival, CH, 2026; 7x7, Tanzhaus Basel, CH, 2025; common.start, Fringify – Independent Arts Festival, DE, 2025) and actors (Stilis, Éther Festival, CH, 2025; The Solstice Tarot, Casa Nabou, CH, 2025). Interested in piano preparation and group improvisation, he has partnered with the Swiss-based experimental group Ensemble Sous-Sol (CH) and performed with the Berlin Improvisers Orchestra (DE). With Casa Nabou (CH), he develops interdisciplinary performances merging theatre, music and performing arts.

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Sylvia Bruckner lives and works in Vienna, Austria. Initially self-taught, she later studied jazz piano under Fritz Pauer at the Vienna Conservatory and earned a second diploma in classical piano from the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna in 1998. Her approach to various instruments (including zither, accordion, and piano) is bold and innovative, utilizing the instruments' full range to explore new harmonic structures and sound clusters, freeing tonality from traditional constraints. Known for her impulsiveness, intensity, and love for extreme contrasts, Bruckner avoids clichés and well-worn sounds, seeking fresh, expressive possibilities. Over the years, she has collaborated with musicians like Martin Siewert, Tony Buck, Nicole Mitchell, Hamid Drake, Joe Fonda, Joëlle Léandre, Didi Kern, John Butcher, Raymond Strid, Thomas Berghammer, Susanna Gartmayer, Vinicius Cajado, Jakob Gnigler, Willi Kellers, Radim Hanousek, Martin Opršál, Jakub Švejnar and many others. She performed at festivals such as Konfrontationen Nickelsdorf, Limmitationes, V:NM Graz, Jazz Fair Zagreb, (Ne)poslušno Ljubljana, and the Jazz Fest Wien, where her powerful style consistently resonates with audiences and fellow artists alike.

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Niko Meinhold is a composer and pianist based in Berlin. He wrote compositions for solo instruments, ensembles, choir and orchestra, as well as for film, TV and radio (like RIAS Bigband and NDR Bigband), theatre and CD productions. Lately focussed on experimental compositions and cross genre projects. His last work, the NDR radio play "Pisten", won the Deutsche Akademie der Künste-Award 2023 of best radio play in Germany. Won other awards with other projects such as the Karl- Hofer- Award, the Berlin Senat Composers Grant, Award for best German University Ensemble. Toured and played on festivals in the USA, UK, Japan, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Iceland, Colombia, Romania, South Korea, Senegal, Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Austria, Israel, Ghana, Algeria, Poland, Serbia, Azerbaijan, Hungary, and of course Germany.

Press quotes: "...experienced and talented jazz master... great impovisor...Unique sound...rich and vivid musical language. " 8Avant Scena)

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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-festival

Venue: 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

https://piano-duo-festival.de/