Gerald Grüner

Born on May 7, Gerald was introduced to the world of music by way of classical accordion training which he began 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 musical instrument keys other than those on an accordion was with his first band "Significant Figures" (Tibor Kövesdi, Lukas Ligeti, and Vinod Edward) in which he played for 2 years. Still, most of his activity with this group was related to the accordion. The experimental pop and exclusively original music generated 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 full-time keyboarder with self-acquired skills and he composed 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 one of them, Fritz Mosonyi, and a few others that Gerald co-founded the band "Deep Thought" several years later. After 2 years, the band was restructured and renamed "The Fate". Some years and local performances later the group disbanded and Gerald and Fritz set out to find a new band to join.

Gerald took 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 soon disbanded and regrouped under the name of "zapAlot". At about the same time, Gerald became the keyboard player of the newly founded band patchwork.fm. Outside of patchwork.fm, Gerald manages his family of 4 and the family chemical business.