Gerald Grüner

Born on May 7, Gerald was introduced to the world of music by way of classical accordion training at the age of 7. He trained with Eva Haupt at Vienna's municipal school of music for several years, performing locally many times in the context of the music school's curriculum and winning several Austrian youth competitions (solo, duo, and ensemble).

His first active encounter with a keyboard other than an accordion keyboard was during the 2-year affiliation with his first band "Significant Figures" (Tibor Kövesdi, Lukas Ligeti, and Vinod Edward). Still, most of his activity with this group was related to the accordion. The experimental pop and exclusively original music produced by this formation was recorded at a studio in Baden and was heard live around Vienna on various occasions. He then joined the band "Check 1" as a self-taught keyboardist and began to compose songs sporadically. Then followed a time when Gerald cut back his musical activities, limiting his performances to occasional shows with the accordion ensembles of former music school classmates. It was with a few of them that Gerald co-created the band "Deep Thought" several years later. After 2 years, the band underwent a lineup change and was renamed "The Fate". Some years and local performances later, the group disbanded and Gerald set out in search of a new band.

Gerald completed 3 years of formal training at the Schubert and Gustav Mahler conservatories in Vienna where he was a student of Paul Urbanek. In 1997, he joined "Lost Art", a band that eventually disbanded and regrouped under the name of "zapAlot". At about the same time, Gerald became the keyboardist for the newly founded band patchwork.fm. Outside of patchwork.fm, Gerald manages his family of 4 and the family chemical business.