Meeting Leo Brouwer Lux Nova Duo

• Leo Brouwer (b. 1939): Souvenir de Liège:
• 1 Brouwer: Souvenir de Liège 14:31
• Boceto No. 1 for Accordion:
• 2 Brouwer: Boceto No. 1 for Accordion 03:18
• Folía a través de los siglos:
• 3 Brouwer: Folía a través de los siglos 13:29
• Provenza Lavender Fields:
• 4 Brouwer: Provenza Lavender Fields 04:03
• Guerra del tiempo:
• 5 Brouwer: Guerra del tiempo 08:00
• Tarantos for Guitar:
• 6 Brouwer: Tarantos for Guitar 04:52
• Tríptico concertante:
• 7 Brouwer: Tríptico concertante: I. Allegro 03:54
• 8 Brouwer: Tríptico concertante: II. Andantino 05:39
• 9 Brouwer: Tríptico concertante: III. Toccata 06:02
• Total Runtime 01:03:48

Info for Meeting Leo Brouwer

On its new GENUIN Album, the Lux Nova Duo takes up the cause of composer Leo Brouwer. The Cuban old master is well known to guitarists and lovers of guitar music but deserves more attention for his gripping, pulsating and multifaceted music! In the unusual line-up with Lydia Schmidl on accordion and Jorge Paz Verastegui on guitar, the Lux Nova Duo presents smaller and more extensive works by Brouwer, such as his Souvenir de Liège, the expansive Triptico concertante or the centuries-spanning Folía a través de los siglos. Through the subtle playing of the Lux Nova Duo, we discover Brouwer's stylistic range, which extends from folkloristic impressions to new, advanced musical language.

Lux Nova Duo

Lux Nova Duo
Fantastic, bravo! Your profound musical artistry is easily recognizable! Cuban conductor and composer and 2017 Grammy Award winner Leo Brouwer about the Lux Nova Duo

The Hamburg-based Lux Nova Duo consists of Peruvian guitarist Jorge Paz Verastegui and German accordionist Lydia Schmidl. The innate sense of ensemble of the duo is so strong that they are also a couple in private life. Founded in 2012 in the inspiring city of Barcelona, the duo is an unusual pairing that sheds new light on each instrument.

Based on their diverse cultural backgrounds, the duo put together exciting recital programs: from lively Baroque music to South American rhythms and experimental sounds. In addition to giving recitals as a classical duo, they also collaborate in multimedia work with ballet—for example with Winnie Dias and the Hamburg Ballett John Neumeier—with choirs such as the Cuori-Ensemble and the Coro de Madrigalistas, and have performed with the chamber ensemble Konsonanz.

The two instrumentalists have also frequently been involved in the creation of new compositions. Numerous world premieres have represented special moments in the duo’s musical life. Several compositions have already been dedicated to the innovative ensemble. Among various premieres on CD, they have recorded works by the Spanish composer José Maria Sánchez-Verdú.

The duo also works closely with composers from all over the world, including Leo Brouwer. The Grammy Award winner is considered one of the most important composers in South America. The Argentinian composer Mario Marcelo Mary also dedicated the piece Misteriosa persistencia to the Lux Nova Duo. Their debut concert in the Elbphilharmonie featured a performance of the world premiere of a work by renowned Peruvian composer Alejandro Núñez Allauca. He combines European compositional techniques with mystical sounds from the Andes.

Numerous concerts have taken the Lux Nova Duo to Spain, Italy, South America and throughout Germany. They have performed at the Elbphilharmonie, the Laeiszhalle, the Glocke Bremen, the Resonanzraum Hamburg and the Auditorium Enrique Granados Lleida, the ZKM Karlsruhe, Festival Klub Katarakt, Hamburg’s Kampnagel Theater, the Brandenburg Summer Concerts, Festival Josep Soler Barcelona and the Forum Neue Musik Hamburg.

In 2014 and 2018 they gave several concerts in South America, including performances at the German-Peruvian Institute and Catholic University of Lima. In addition to performing in recital, the duo places special emphasis on working with young composers, musical outreach and educational concerts.

The Lux Nova Duo is regularly involved in various CD projects. Their debut CD Intuiciones featuring Spanish/Latin American repertoire was a competition prize at the University of the Arts Bremen. In the following year Schmidl and Verastegui recorded the CD Hamburg Dialogues (featuring Hamburg composers).

Their current recital program Inspiración Bach follows in the footsteps of the Baroque composer all the way to the present day, while showing off their own stylistic versatility: Have you already heard how jazz music is linked to Bach? What does Shostakovich sound like on the guitar and accordion?

Jorge Paz Verastegui
studied with Nelly Borda and Oscar Zamora at the Conservatorio Nacional de Música del Perú. He continued his studies with Alex Garrobé at the Escola superior de musica de Catalunya (Barcelona) with a minor in Baroque guitar and Renaissance lute with Monica Pustilnik. In 2015 he completed his master‘s degree with top marks at the Hamburg University of Music and Theatre in the class of Olaf van Gonnissen.

Jorge Paz Verastegui performed the Concierto para guitarra y orquesta by Edgar Valcárcel and Tres danzas concertantes with the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional del Perú under the direction of Manuel Elias. He performed the same concerto in 2017 with the chamber ensemble Konsonanz at the Leiszhalle in Hamburg. Jorge Paz Verastegui worked with composers such as Edgar Valcarcel, Leo Brouwer, Manfred Stahnke, Georg Hajdu, Xioyong Chen, Luis David Aguilar, Alejandro Nunez Allauca and Tristan Köster on the world premiere of various works for guitar. He plays a guitar made by Marius Redeker in 2017.

Lydia Schmidl
studied with Ivan Koval in Weimar as well as with Claudia Buder at the Franz Liszt University of Music (Weimar). She continued her studies with Iñaki Alberdi at the Escola superior de musica de Catalunya (Barcelona). In the summer of 2015 she completed her master‘s degree in accordion with Margit Kern at the University of the Arts Bremen.

She was accepted into the support programme stART.up of the Claussen Simon-Foundation in 2019 and—as a soloist with the the chamber ensemble Konsonanz—she was part of the first performance of the arrangement for accordion of Omaggio a Piazzolla by the Peruvian composer Alejandro Nuñez Allauca in the Laeiszhalle Hamburg in 2017.

She also played with the Ensemble New Babylon Bremen and worked there with the composers Klaus Huber and Younghi Pagh-Paan. In December 2013 she interpreted the piece quartet by Rebecca Saunders in a composer portrait in Osnabrück.

Booklet for Meeting Leo Brouwer