The Schanzer/Speach Duo consists of Jeffrey Schanzer, composer/guitarist and Bernadette Speach, composer/pianist. Their collaborative works combine the intuition and spontaneity of improvisation with the structure of formal composition.

The Duo had its premiere performance in October 1986 at Experimental Intermedia Foundation, New York City. Since that time, they have performed in New York at Roulette, St. Ann's Church, the Knitting Factory, The Stone and Dia Center for the Arts, and in Newark, Hartford, Buffalo, Chicago, Boulder, San Francisco, Seattle, Puerto Rico, Gent and Liege, Belgium, and Cologne and Herne, Germany. Dualities, the Duo's first CD, was released on the Mode/Avant label in January 1992 and was picked as one of the top 10 recordings of 1992 by Robert Hicks in Jazziz magazine. The Duo has had works written for it by Lester Bowie, Kitty Brazelton, Michael Colquhoun, Fred Ho, Joseph Jarman, Oliver Lake, Tania León, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Betsy McClelland, William Ortiz, Wadada Leo Smith and Steven Swartz. Artists who have performed with the Duo include Lester Bowie, Thomas Buckner, Michael Colquhoun, Barbara Held, Joseph Jarman, Oliver Lake, Joelle Leandre, Fred Ho, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Myra Melford, David Pleasant, Bobby Previte, Alva Rogers, Ned Rothenberg, Wadada Leo Smith, Libby Van Cleve and Jack Vees.

Although trained in the classical idiom, Bernadette Speach is equally rooted in jazz, and in the latter vein includes room for aleatory elements in her compositions, ranging from solo, chamber, choral and orchestral. Her latest project, the opera Little Rock Nine - a collaboration with librettist Thulani Davis, tells the story of nine students, ages 14 and 15, who integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957-58. Little Rock Nine reunites Speach with Davis. The pair redefined the art of poetry and music fusion. Speach’s post-minimalistic jazz punctuates Davis’ considerable literary depth. As a presenter she has commissioned, premiered and presented a host of contemporary composers of multi-genre idioms. As a seasoned improviser she has performed with her husband, guitarist/composer Jeffrey Schanzer and a host of others. As pianist she is regarded for her interpretations of the keyboard repertoire of John Cage, including In a Landscape and pieces for toy piano. A selection of her works appears on the CDs Without Borders and Reflections on the Mode label.

"They're from different worlds - improvising guitarist Jeffrey Schanzer devours various world traditions, pianist Bernadette Speach notates her quasipostnotreallyminimalist tone poems. But their sensibilities match, their talents are complementary.... they've arrived at one of the most intelligent solutions to the composition-improv interface." - Kyle Gann, The Village Voice

"... composers who draw on a healthy variety of musical influences." - Allan Kozinn, The New York Times

"They tend to sound rather like an updated, freely improvising extension of jazz piano great Lennie Tristano and his guitar partner Billy Bauer, without Tristano's odd intensity -- though much of their work, such as the intriguing 'Blue' is, as one critic noted, to the jazz tradition what Stravinsky's Ragtime is to ragtime.... The post modern oppositions in their music -- consonance in dissonance, the harmonic movement of Debussy or Messiaen, Jim Hall or Derek Baily -- at best sustain tension and movement without nervosity. ... the innate attractiveness of this pair's music is as relevant to the present age as the violent sound of their highly amplified contemporaries." - John Litweiler, The Reader (Chicago)

"Silence is the third partner in this zen-delicate collaboration .... Whether it's the ruminative, suspended tonality of "Two in the Morning" or more frantic, post-serial workouts like "3-½" and "It's Your Turn," the chemistry between them is immediate and forceful." - Bill Millkowski, Jazz Times

"I don't doubt at all that this disc [Dualities] succeeds in seducing the general public to its intimate ambience." - Jazz in Time (Belgium)

Complete list of improvisations for piano and guitar conceived and performed by the Schanzer/Speach Duo.