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Katia Labèque is a French pianist known for her longtime collaboration with her younger sister in the Katia & Marielle Labèque piano duo. She was born in 1950 in Hendaye, France, and she started playing the piano when she was five years old. She received early instruction from her mother Ada Cecchi, who was an accomplished pianist and former pupil of Marguerite Long. Her father was also a musician and sang in the choir of the Bordeaux Opera. Later, Labèque and her younger sister Marielle studied piano together under Lucette Descaves at the Paris Conservatory. After they graduated in 1968, they continued their education and enrolled in the cycle de perfectionnement under Jean Hubeau, where they focused on repertoire for two pianos. The following year, they released their debut album Olivier Messiaen: Visions De L'Amen. This was followed by several recordings in the '70s including Bartok: Sonata for 2 Pianos and Percussion, Rachmaninov: 24 Preludes; Suite No. 2, and Hindemith - Martinu. They became quite popular through their recordings and touring from around this time, but they gained worldwide acclaim after their 1980 album Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue sold over 500,000 copies. The duo became known for their interpretations of both standard repertoire and contemporary works, and composers such as Philip Glass, Luciano Berio, and Arvo Pärt have written pieces especially for them. Labèque was married to jazz fusion guitarist John McLaughlin in the '80s, and they toured together and recorded Belo Horizonte, Music Spoken Here, and Mediterranean. The duo explored Baroque repertoire in the late '90s and performed under many of the top conductors of the genre, including Simon Rattle, John Eliot Gardiner, and Andrea Marcon. After a ten-year-long break from recording, she cofounded the KML Recordings label with her sister in 2007. The label was dedicated to releasing their own recordings and those of young and experimental ensembles from other genres, such as Dream House, Kalakan, and Red Velvet. Labèque remained very active with the piano duo through the 2010s and recorded several albums on the KML label, including Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue; Bernstein: West Side Story and Minimalist Dream House. Since 2020, she has premiered works by Nico Muhly and Bryce Dessner and appeared on the albums Nazareno: Bernstein, Stravinsky, Golijov, and Philip Glass: Cocteau Trilogy. ~ RJ Lambert

When Gabriel Fauré was a boy, Berlioz had just written La damnation de Faust and Henry David Thoreau was writing Walden. By the time of his death, Stravinsky had written The Rite of Spring and World War I had ended in the devastation of Europe. In this dramatic period in history, Fauré strove to bring together the best of traditional and progressive music and, in the process, created some of the most exquisite works in the French repertoire. He was one of the most advanced figures in French musical circles and influenced a generation of composers world-wide.

Fauré was the youngest child of a school headmaster and spent many hours playing the harmonium in the chapel next to his father's school. Fauré's father enrolled the 9-year-old as a boarder at the École Niedermeyer in Paris, where he remained for 11 years, learning church music, organ, piano, harmony, counterpoint, and literature. In 1861, Saint-Saëns joined the school and introduced Fauré and other students to the works of more contemporary composers such as Schumann, Liszt, and Wagner. Fauré's earliest songs and piano pieces date from this period, just before his graduation in 1865, which he achieved with awards in almost every subject. For the next several years, he took on various organist positions, served for a time in the Imperial Guard, and taught. In 1871 he and his friends -- d'Indy, Lalo, Duparc, and Chabrier -- formed the Société Nationale de Musique, and soon after, Saint-Saëns introduced him to the salon of Pauline Viardot and Parisian musical high society. Fauré wrote his first important chamber works (the Violin Sonata No. 1 and Piano Quartet No. 1), then set out on a series of musical expeditions to meet Liszt and Wagner. Throughout the 1880s, he held various positions and continued to write songs and piano pieces, but felt unsure enough of his compositional talents to attempt anything much larger than incidental music. Fauré's pieces began to show a complexity of musical line and harmony which were to become the hallmarks of his music. He began to develop a highly original approach to tonality, in which modal harmony and altered scales figured largely. The next decade, however, is when Fauré came into his own. His music, although considered too advanced by most, gained recognition amongst his musical friends. This was his first truly productive phase, seeing the completion of his Requiem, the Cinq Mélodies, and the Dolly Suite, among other works. Using an economy of expression and boldness of harmony, he built the musical bridge over which his students -- such as Maurice Ravel and Nadia Boulanger -- would cross on their journey into the 20th century. He was named composition professor at the Paris Conservatoire in 1896. In 1905, he became director of the conservatory and made several significant reforms. Ironically, this position gave his works more exposure, but it reduced his time for composition and came when he was increasingly bothered by hearing problems. Fauré's works of this period show the last, most sophisticated stages of his writing, streamlined and elegant in form. During World War I, Fauré essentially remained in Paris and had another extremely productive phase, producing, among other things, Le Jardin clos and the Fantaisie for piano and orchestra, Op. 111, which show a force and violence that make them among the most powerful pieces in French music. In 1920 he retired from the school, and the following year gave up his music critic position with Le Figaro, which he had held since 1903. Between then and his death in 1924, he would produce his great, last works: several chamber works and the song cycle L'horizon chimérique. ~ TiVo Staff

Marielle Labèque is a French pianist known for her long collaboration with her sister in the Katia and Marielle Labèque piano duo. She also co-founded the Studio KML and KML Recordings label, which supports young and experimental recording artists. She was born in Bayonne in 1952, and both of her parents were musicians. Her father sang in the choir of the Bordeaux Opera, and her mother, Ada Cecchi, was a pianist and former student of Marguerite Long. Labèque and her older sister Katia began learning the piano from their mother in 1955, and later they studied piano at the Paris Conservatory. After her graduation in 1968 she started learning four-hand and two-piano repertoire with her sister under Jean Hubeau in the cycle de perfectionnement, and in 1969 they made their recording debut with the album Olivier Messiaen: Visions De L'Amen. They continued in this genre through the '70s and became very popular, but they gained worldwide acclaim after their 1980 album Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue sold over 500,000 copies. They performed and recorded the standard repertoire and new works by composers such as Philip Glass, Luciano Berio, and Arvo Pärt. Labèque and her sister explored Baroque repertoire in the late '90s and performed under many of the top conductors of the genre, including Simon Rattle, John Eliot Gardiner, and Andrea Marcon. It was also around this time when Labèque married conductor Semyon Bychkov. After a ten-year-long break from recording, she cofounded the KML Recordings label with her sister in 2007, where they released their own records and those of young and experimental ensembles from other genres, such as Dream House, Kalakan, and Red Velvet. Labèque remained very active with the piano duo through the 2010s and recorded several albums on the KML label, including Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue; Bernstein: West Side Story and Minimalist Dream House. Since 2020 she has appeared on the albums Nazareno: Bernstein, Stravinsky, Golijov and Dream House Quartet. Labèque resides with her sister in a palace in Rome and travels with her husband. ~ RJ Lambert

It is perhaps not surprising that pianist Pascal Rogé -- a third-generation French musician -- has mastered the modern French piano repertoire. What is surprising is the actual breadth of his repertoire and the young age at which he excelled.

In 1962, at the age of 11, he was admitted to the Paris Conservatoire, having previously studied with his mother. By the age of 15, he had won first prize for both piano and chamber music. At 18, he performed solo recitals in both Paris and London. But his major breakthrough was the first prize in the Jacques Thibaud International Competition in 1971. Several European engagements followed, and in 1974 he made his first tour to the United States, returning nearly every season. He has also become a favorite in Australia and Japan, where he has made over 20 tours.

Rogé's particular strengths lie in his sensitive and personal interpretations of 20th century French composers; he has made recordings of complete cycles of Ravel, Poulenc, and Satie, among others. His repertoire also includes d'Indy, Saint-Saëns, as well as the great German masters -- Haydn, Mozart, Brahms, and Beethoven. His recordings have received numerous awards, including the Grand Prix du Disque and an Edison award for the Ravel concertos. His first volume of Poulenc won the 1988 Gramophone award for Best Instrumental Recording, and his collaboration with Chantal Juillet and Truls Mørk won the 1997 Gramophone award for Best Chamber Music recording. In the new century, he began a new recording project for Onyx that included a complete Debussy cycle. He also began performing and touring with his wife, Ami Rogé. The pair commissioned a two piano concerto from Matthew Hindson, which they premiered in 2011.

He has taught at the Académie in Nice, but a busy international schedule has kept him from consistent teaching. More stylist than virtuosic, his solo pianism has been recognized for its decidedly French elegance, while his collaboration with orchestras has been noted for its faultless musicianship, and made him a favorite of conductors ranging from Charles Dutoit to Lorin Maazel to Kurt Masur.