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 Duo was founded in 2012 in the inspiring city of Barcelona and sheds a new light on this unusual instrumental combination.

The Lux Nova Duo has performed in major concert halls throughout Europe and South America such as the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the Glocke Bremen, the Bremen Broadcasting Hall, the National Theatre of Costa Rica, the Musikbrauerei Berlin, and the main hall of the Auditorio de Girona in Spain. They have been invited to international festivals such as the Festival klub katarakt, the Brandenburg Summer Concerts, the Hamburg Guitar Festival, and the Villa Sottocasa Bergamo in Italy.

In addition, the birth of a new composition – the world premiere – represents a special moment for the two musicians. To date, more than forty compositions have been dedicated to the innovative instrumental combination, followed by first CD recordings.

The Duo collaborates worldwide with composers such as Leo Brouwer, José M. Sánchez-Verdú, Sascha Lino Lemke, Mario M. Mary, and Xiaoyong Chen. The world premiere of Leo Brouwer’s Variaciones concertantes after Beethoven was broadcasted live from the Bremen Broadcasting Hall on Deutschlandfunk Kultur in October 2020. Subsequently, the American premiere with the Orquesta Sinfónica de Heredia (Costa Rica) under the direction of Eddie Mora (Latin Grammy Award 2018) was streamed from the National Theatre.

Their fourth CD, Meeting Leo Brouwer, as well as their preceding album were honored by several nominations for the German Record Critics' Award. Their third CD, Inspiración Bach, received many positive reviews in magazines such as Rondo and from international radio stations.


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.

Photo: Marcus Engler

The artist's homepage:

https://www.lux-nova-duo.com/