Lydia Schmidl is a versatile accordionist and teacher who is constantly pushing the boundaries of her instrument with dedication. As a lecturer in accordion at the University of the Arts in Bremen, she passes on her artistic experience to the next generation and shapes a lively accordion scene in northern Germany.
Contemporary music is a particular focus of her work. Lydia Schmidl regularly collaborates with numerous composers and has premiered several works written especially for her. In 2025, she performed the premiere of Latin Grammy winner Leo Brouwers' Canticós de un chamán invisible for solo accordion – a work that explores the healing and spiritual power of music. Mario Marys Bipolar fluid for accordion and electronics is one of the outstanding projects of recent years. As a soloist, Lydia Schmidl inspires audiences with her expressive musical language and her sense of dramatic depth. She has performed works by Astor Piazzolla, Alejandro Nuñez Allauca, and Sofia Gubaidulina and has given concerts with, among others, the Coro de Madrigalistas de la Universidad Católica (Peru) and the chamber ensemble Konsonanz at the Laeiszhalle Hamburg.
In addition to her solo career, Lydia Schmidl is also intensely involved in chamber music. Together with guitarist Jorge Paz Verastegui gründete sie das international erfolgreiche Lux Nova Duo, which is the only ensemble of its kind to consistently work on expanding the repertoire for accordion and guitar. More than 35 works have been dedicated to the duo, including pieces by Leo Brouwer, José María Sánchez-Verdú, and Fabian Panisello. Their concerts have taken the duo to renowned venues such as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Elbphilharmonie, the Glocke Bremen, and the national theaters of Costa Rica and Peru. The world premiere of Leo Brouwer's double concerto with string ensemble was broadcast live on Deutschlandfunk Kultur.
Ihre CDs Inspiración Bach (Genuin, 2020) and Meeting Leo Brouwer were nominated several times for the German Record Critics' Award and received excellent international acclaim. Radio stations such as BBC, ORF 1, SRF 2 Kultur, Deutschlandfunk Kultur, and Bremen Zwei reported on the album, which sensitively combines classical and contemporary music. Their current CD Transcend (Genuin 2023) was recorded with the Württemberg Chamber Orchestra Heilbronn. It contains exclusively first recordings of double concertos.
As an orchestral musician, she has performed with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra under the baton of Alan Gilbert, broadcast live on Arte Concert from the Grand Hall of the Elbphilharmonie. Engagements with the Ensemble New Babylon Bremen and the Komponistenforum Osnabrück have led to collaborations with composers such as Rebecca Saunders, Klaus Huber, and Younghi Pagh-Paan.
Lydia Schmidl received her training at the University of Music Franz Liszt Weimar under Prof. Ivan Koval and at the University of the Arts Bremen under Prof. Margit Kern, where she completed her master's degree in accordion in 2015. She also received important artistic inspiration from Prof. Claudia Buder and Prof. Iñaki Alberdi at the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya in Barcelona. She is a recipient of the Carl Müllerhartung Scholarship from the Swiss Thyll Foundation and a former scholarship holder of the Artist Program. stART.up der Claussen-Simon-Stiftung
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