Katia & Marielle Labèque

  • Piano Duo

Germany

Labeque3_©UmbertoNicoletti

“The best piano duo in front of an audience today” (New York Times)

“The Labèque sisters are tremendous. They are great performers, and great interpreters. And they are wonderful supporters of music- not only modern music, but just music. It is great to work with them” (Philip Glass)

“Whether Mozart or Stravinsky, their musical line always sounds as if it’s being woven for the very first time... But the illusion of improvisation is the genius of their performances. In all their recordings there is a deceptive sprezzatura that is born of throwing the preparation to the winds and hanging onto each others ears.” (The Times)

Katia and Marielle Labèque are sibling pianists renowned for their ensemble of synchronicity and energy. Their musical ambitions started at an early age and they rose to international fame with their contemporary rendition of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue (one of the first gold records in classical music) and have since developed a stunning career with performances worldwide.

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They are regular guests with the most prestigious orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, Dresden Staatskapelle, Filarmonia della Scala, Leipzig Gewandhaus, London Symphony, London Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Philadelphia Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Santa Cecilia and Vienna Philharmonic, under the direction of John Adams, Semyon Bychkov, Sir Colin Davis, Gustavo Dudamel, Gustavo Gimeno, Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla, Pietari Inkinen, Louis Langrée, Zubin Mehta, Juanjo Mena, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Seiji Ozawa, Antonio Pappano, Matthias Pintscher, Georges Prêtre, Sir Simon Rattle, Santtu Matias Rouvali, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Michael Tilson Thomas and Jaap van Zweden.

They have appeared with Baroque music ensembles such as The English Baroque Soloists with Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Il Giardino Armonico with Giovanni Antonini, Musica Antica with Reinhard Goebel and Venice Baroque Orchestra with Andrea Marcon, Il Pomo d’Oro with Maxim Emelyanichev and with The Age of Enlightenment & Sir Simon Rattle.

Katia and Marielle have had the privilege of working with many composers including Thomas Adès, Louis Andriessen, Luciano Berio, Pierre Boulez, Bryce Dessner, Philip Glass, Osvaldo Golijov, György Ligeti, Nico Muhly and Olivier Messiaen. At Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles they presented the world premiere of Philip Glass’s new Concerto with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Gustavo Dudamel, the world premiere of Bryce Dessner’s concerto at Royal Festival Hall with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and John Storgårds and the new concerto written by Nico Muhly “in Certain Circles” was premiered by Orchestre de Paris with Maxim Emelyanichev in 2021 and New York Philharmonic with Jaap van Zweden in 2022.

In Germany, they can be heard in Munich and Bamberg in the 2024/25 season with the BR Symphonieorchester under Simon Rattle and the concerto "Nazareno" for two pianos, percussion and orchestra by Osvaldo Golijov in an arrangement by Gonzalo Grau.

The Labèques play in festivals and renowned venues worldwide including the Vienna Musikverein, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Munich Philharmonie, Carnegie Hall, Royal Festival Hall, La Scala, Berlin Philharmonie, Blossom, Hollywood Bowl, Lucerne, BBC Proms, Ravinia, Tanglewood and Salzburg. An audience of more than 33.000 attended a gala concert with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Sir Simon Rattle at Berlin’s Waldbühne, now available on DVD (EuroArts). A record audience of more than 100.000 attended the Vienna Summer Night Concert 2016 in Schönbrunn (now available on CD and DVD by SONY), where Katia and Marielle played with the Vienna Philharmonic under the baton of Semyon Bychkov. More than 1.5 million viewers followed the event worldwide on television.

For their own label KML recordings, they have released the CD box “Sisters” (2014) with a selection of musical pieces from their personal and professional lives. Previous releases include a Gershwin-Bernstein album and their project Minimalist Dream House (50 years of minimalist music). The DVD “The Labeque Way, a letter to Katia and Marielle by Alessandro Baricco” produced by El Deseo (Pedro and Augustin Almodóvar) and filmed by Felix Cabez is released by EuroArts. Their biography, “Une vie a quatre mains” by Renaud Machart is published by Buchet-Chastel.

Labèque’s label KML Recordings joined the historical label Deutsche Grammophon and released various albums: “Invocations”, “Love Stories”, “Amoria”, “Moondog”, “El Chan” -dedicated entirely to American composer Bryce Dessner and “Glass – Les Enfants Terribles”. In “Dream House Quartet”, the piano duo performs commissioned compositions by visionary composers and key contemporary works from the last half century together with Bryce Dessner and David Chalmin. In their latest album “Cocteau Trilogy” (2024), Katia and Marielle Labèque play the suites for two pianos from the three operas in Philip Glass's Cocteau trilogy: Orphée, La Belle et La Bête and Les Enfants Terribles.

At the invitation of the Philharmonie Hall in Paris for a special « Week End », attention was focused on “Amoria”, “Invocations” and their new project for two guitars and two pianos with David Chalmin and Bryce Dessner including a piece written for them by Thom Yorke “Don’t fear the Light” with Thom Yorke as special guest.

www.labeque.com / Facebook: www.facebook.com/labeque.official / Twitter: @KMLabeque

As of Season 2024/2025

Please use this by Weigold & Böhm authorized Biography only.

Contacts

Projects

  • Further dates upon request

    Katia & Marielle Labèque (Klavierduo)

    Werke von Debussy, Ravel und Glass

    Program:

    Claude Debussy - Six épigraphes antiques
    original version on two pianos
    Pour invoquer Pan, dieu vent d'été -
    Pour un tombeau sans nom
    Pour que la nuit soit propice
    Pour la danseuse aux crotales
    Pour l'Egyptienne
    Pour remercier la pluie au matin

    Maurice Ravel - Ma mère l'oye
    original four hands version
    Pavane de la Belle au bois dormant
    Petit Poucet
    Laideronnette, Imperatrice des Pagodes
    Les entretiens de la Belle et de la Bête
    Le jardin feerique

    Pause

    Philip Glass - "Les Enfants Terribles" arrangement Michael Riesman
    1. Ouverture
    2. Paul is Dying
    3. The Somnambulist
    4. She Slapped me
    5. They lived their dream
    6. Terrible interlude
    7. Cocoon of Shawls
    8. Lost
    9. Are you in Love, Agathe
    10. She took the Path
    11. Paul's End

  • Further dates upon request

    Katia & Marielle Labèque (Klavierduo)

    Werke von Debussy, Schubert und Glass

    Program:

    Claude Debussy - Six épigraphes antiques
    original version on two pianos
    Pour invoquer Pan, dieu vent d'été -
    Pour un tombeau sans nom
    Pour que la nuit soit propice
    Pour la danseuse aux crotales
    Pour l'Egyptienne
    Pour remercier la pluie au matin

    Franz Schubert - Fantasie in F-Dur für Klavierduo, D 940 / op. 103
    1 Allegrio molto moderato
    2 Largo
    3 Allegro vivace
    4 Tempo I

    Pause

    Philip Glass - "Les Enfants Terribles" arrangement Michael Riesman
    1. Ouverture
    2. Paul is Dying
    3. The Somnambulist
    4. She Slapped me
    5. They lived their dream
    6. Terrible interlude
    7. Cocoon of Shawls
    8. Lost
    9. Are you in Love, Agathe
    10. She took the Path
    11. Paul's End

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