Johannes Hustedt, flute
Sontraud Speidel, piano

At the Karlsruhe University of Music, Sontraud Speidel and Johannes Hustedt met and developed a mutual appreciation for each other as colleagues. They enjoy, also international, a high reputation and worked together as jurors at various music competitions and on cultural policy committees before coming together as a duo for the Clara Schumann Year 2019. Their Beethoven interpretations to mark the 250th anniversary of his birth led them to the audite label in 2020, where they are recording a series of several CDs.

The finest: excerpts from Beethoven's variation collections Opus 105 and Opus 107 with Johannes Hustedt on the flute and Sontraud Speidel on the piano!
Hustedt and Speidel's music revealed the entire cosmos of Beethoven's imagination: his humor, his irony, his joy of experimentation, even his life-affirming "Be embraced, millions." Perhaps never before has such a work been composed for piano and flute, with such breadth of variation and such dynamic tension. Johannes Hustedt and Sontraud Speidel acted as fortunate treasure hunters. Heartfelt applause.
Claus-Dieter Hanauer, PAMINA Magazine

It is truly a blessing that there are musicians like Sontraud Speidel and Johannes Hustedt who, with their joy of discovery and musical curiosity, repeatedly “unearth” music that is threatened with oblivion and, moreover, not only perform it in concerts but also release it on recordings, thus doing something for the collective preservation of these musical art treasures.
The program, presented with great artistic maturity and well-thought-out artistic design, coupled with joy in playing and a pure, clear tone (Johannes Hustedt), but also with self-confident, distinctive access and great sovereignty (Sontraud Speidel), received much and warm applause and must have expanded the repertoire knowledge of the interested listeners in a worthwhile way.
Daniel Hennigs, Badische Neueste Nachrichten

The internationally renowned duo of Johannes Hustedt (flute) and Sontraut Speidel (piano) chose Beethoven's "National Airs with Variations," Op. 107 and Op. 105, to revive these mostly unfamiliar sounds. The flautist conjured the most exquisite sounds and witty articulations from his gold flute. He was particularly adept at creating a rich and varied sound in the lower register. In the middle register, his instrument seemed to sing. (...)
The audience was treated to a constant stream of inspired interplay and organic transitions. Routine and boredom from repetitive patterns were thus prevented from creeping in.
In conclusion: The exceptionally warm applause at the end proved to the two artists that they had truly delighted their audience and given their friends in Bad Boll a touching Christmas gift.
Ulrich Kernen, Neue Württembergische Zeitung

SONTRAUD SPEIDEL
 
“Sontraud Speidel – a kind of Clara Schumann of our days”
(Neue Zeitschrift für Musik)
 
“Sontraud Speidel – epochal piano playing”
(online review by Dr Moritz von Bredow)
 
Sontraud Speidel joined the class of exiled Russian Irene Slavin at the Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe at the age of eleven. After graduating from high school, she studied with Irene Slavin and Yvonne Loriod-Messiaen in Karlsruhe, Branka Musulin in Frankfurt, Stefan Askenase in Brussels and Géza Anda in Lucerne. She has won prizes at national and international competitions (1st Prize at the Schools of the Federal Republic of Germany at the age of 16, 1st Prize at the International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition in Washington D.C. / USA, Jackson Prize of the Boston Symphony Orchestra for New Music, etc.). Concerts, radio and CD recordings, television appearances and masterclasses have taken her to Europe, the USA, Canada, Israel, Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Brazil, Morocco, Armenia and Turkey.
Speidel is a professor of piano at the Karlsruhe University of Music. She has been a guest professor at universities and conservatoires in Europe, the USA, Canada, Israel and Asia and is a regular judge at national and international competitions.
Several contemporary composers have dedicated works to her and entrusted her with premieres. She was the soloist at the world premiere of David Winkler’s Concerto for Piano and 13 Instruments in Tanglewood / USA and in 1979, at the invitation of German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, she gave a piano recital at the Palais Schaumburg Bonn. In Thessaloniki she played the Greek premiere of Alexander Scriabin’s Piano Concerto and in Karlsruhe the world premiere of Robert Schumann’s Variations on a Nocturne by Chopin, newly discovered by Dr Joachim Draheim. In Solingen, she was the soloist at the world premiere of the piano concerto Kristallspiele, dedicated to her by Violeta Dinescu.
Speidel heads the Piano Podium Karlsruhe for the promotion of young musical talent and is co-founder and artistic director of the Musikforum Hohenwettersbach concert series. The Elisabeth Speidel Fund, which she initiated, supports talented musicians. She has been awarded the Silver Medal of Honour for Services to the State of Vienna, the Golden Josef Dichler Medal and the Federal Cross of Merit. In 2011, the Karlsruhe University of Music awarded her the first-ever Eugen Werner Velte Prize. The Echo Klassik prize winner was honoured with the City of Karlsruhe’s Medal of Honour in 2024 and with the Order of Merit of Baden-Württemberg in 2025. She is a Steinway Artist, an honorary member of the Werner Trenkner Society Solingen, the Baden-Württemberg Tonkünstlerverband and Inner Wheel Nordschwarzwald.