ÍøÆغÚÁÏ

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

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

Beloved for her compelling interdisciplinary approach to music and dance, Meredith Monk is one of the most acclaimed performance artists of her generation. Recognized as a pioneer of the abstract "extended vocal technique," Monk combines sound with choreography, often incorporating other visual elements, to create an art that defies category. While she is most strongly associated with the avant-garde, her music borrows widely from such genres as classical, opera, jazz, folk, and non-Euro-American world traditions. Since her emergence in the late '60s, she has won acclaim for her many live works, including 1969's Juice: A Theatre Cantata in Three Installments at New York's Guggenheim Museum, 1994's American Archeology #1: Roosevelt Island, and 2009's reworking of Juice, Ascension Variations. She also expanded her work into film, directing 1981's Ellis Island and 1988's Book of Days. Working on her own and with her innovative vocal and dance ensemble, Monk has issued a series of highly acclaimed albums for the ECM label, including 1980's Dolmen Music, 1992's Facing North, 2008's Grammy-nominated Impermanence, and 2016's On Behalf of Nature. Along with holding honorary Doctor of Arts degrees from Bard College, The Juilliard School, Boston Conservatory, and other prestigious institutions, Monk has garnered numerous accolades, including a 1995 MacArthur "Genius" Award, two Guggenheim Fellowships, a 2012 Doris Duke Artist Award, and a 2015 National Medal of the Arts.

Meredith Jane Monk was born in 1942 in Peru to American parents while her mother, vocalist Audrey Marsh, was on tour. Marsh and Monk's father, Theodore Glenn Monk, raised Monk in Connecticut and New York, where she took piano lessons with Gershon Konikow. She also intensively studied Dalcroze Eurhythmics, an experiential educational method that teaches students to connect musical rhythm, structure, and expression through the movement of their own bodies. After high school, she attended Sarah Lawrence College, where she focused on both music and movement, studying modern dance with Bessie Schönberg, voice with Vicki Starr, John Devers, and Jeanette Lovetri, and composition with Ruth Lloyd, Richard Averee, and Glenn Mack. Graduating in 1964 with a Bachelor of Arts degree, Monk settled in New York, where she began combining her choreography and composition.

In 1968, she formed her first ensemble, The House, as a vehicle for exploring her concepts of interdisciplinary performance. Working with a group of 20 performers, she combined her "extended vocal techniques" (which included the use of overtones, throat singing, keening, yodeling, percussive vocalizations, and micro-tonality) with dance, theater, film, and other elements. In 1969, she staged one of the first sight-specific works, Juice: A Theatre Cantata in Three Installments. The first part featured eight performers located on the ramp of the Guggenheim Museum, the second featured performers at the Minor Latham Playhouse, and the third featured TV displays in her home loft. Equally compelling interdisciplinary works followed, including 1971's Joan of Arc-inspired Vessel, 1972's The Education of a Girl Child, and 1976's Quarry, the latter of which dealt with Jewish persecution and the Holocaust. These early works garnered her increasing acclaim, including Obie Awards for Vessel and Quarry. She also received the first of two Guggenheim fellowships in 1972 (the other was awarded in 1982). Monk has continued to stage similarly innovative productions, including 1994's American Archeology #1: Roosevelt Island and 2009's reworking of Juice, Ascension Variations.

As a recording artist, Monk debuted with 1971's Key, which featured many of her earliest works for voice and other instruments. Her second album, Our Lady of Late, followed in 1973 and found her working with percussionist Collin Walcott. There has been much overlap in her career between her staged works and vocal compositions. In 1978, she formed the Meredith Monk Vocal Ensemble to further develop her musical concepts. Her first widely celebrated work was 1979's Songs from the Hill/Tablet, which featured compositions for voice and piano. In 1980, Monk signed with Manfred Eicher's ECM label and released Dolmen Music in 1981. A triumph of minimalism, it found Monk working with her vocal ensemble, weaving in percussion and cello; it won the German Critic's Prize. Also that year, she made her directorial debut, Ellis Island, for which she also composed the music. Her second ECM album, 1983's Turtle Dreams, brought her work yet wider attention in North America. That same year, Monk was the subject of director Peter Greenaway's film in the Four American Composers series. In 1986, the Wergo label reissued her second album, Our Lady of Late: The Vanguard Tapes, which took home that year's German Critic's Prize, and she was the recipient of the National Music Theatre Award in the United States. Do You Be arrived on ECM in 1987 and included excerpts from some of Monk's various long-form theater pieces.

Around this time, Monk directed her second film, Book of Days, which opened at the New York Film Festival and was later adapted for television. The soundtrack to Book of Days was released on ECM in 1990. Her eighth ECM album, 1992's Facing North, was a collection of smaller, spare pieces recorded with singer Robert Een. Along with vocals, it found Monk employing a pitch pipe, piano, and organ. In contrast, 1993's expansive Atlas: An Opera in 3 Parts (which originally premiered on-stage at the Houston Grand Opera the previous year) featured more than 30 vocalists and a small chamber orchestra. In 1995, Monk was awarded a MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Grant. Two years later, she released Volcano Songs, a suite for four voices and two pianos. In July 2000, New York's Lincoln Center Festival honored her with a three-concert retrospective of her music, Voice Travel.

Following a five-year break from recording, during which time she spent composing, performing, and traveling, Monk re-emerged with 2002's Mercy. The album found her working with a small vocal group featuring Theo Bleckman, clarinetist Bohdan Hilash, and percussionist John Hollenbeck. Bleckman was also on board for 2008's Impermanence, which again featured a similar vocal and instrumental ensemble performing minimalist pieces. The album earned Monk her first Grammy nomination for Best Small Ensemble Performance. A compilation, Beginnings, arrived on John Zorn's Tzadik label in 2009 and featured Monk's works from 1966 through 1980. Along with her original pieces, the set included the song Candy Bullets and Moon, which was co-composed with Don Preston (who also played organ and percussion on the track).

Songs of Ascension, another large ensemble work, was issued in 2011. Piano Songs arrived in 2014 and found pianists Ursula Oppens and Bruce Brubaker performing works Monk composed between 1971 and 2006. Inspired by an ecologically minded stage work, 2016's On Behalf of Nature featured Monk's vocal ensemble, as well as contributions by percussionist Hollenbeck, reedist Hilash, harpist Laura Sherman, and singer Allison Sniffin, who also doubled on piano, violin, and French horn. In 2020, Monk released Memory Game, which again featured Hollenback and Sniffin, as well as an appearance by the Bang on a Can All-Stars. ECM issued Meredith Monk: The Recordings, a 13-disc collection of recordings Monk had previously made for that label, in 2022. ~ Matt Collar

Whether it's as guitarist for the National, curator of the MusicNOW festival, producer, film scorer, or composer-in-residence, Bryce Dessner is constantly expanding his musical horizons. Drawing on diverse elements and influences, including music of other cultures or styles, much of his creative energy is sparked by collaborations with other musicians. Around the time the National released their 2001 eponymous debut, Dessner co-founded the contemporary ensemble Clogs, and he has remained active as a performer and festival director in the classical realm alongside his indie rock band's Top Five-charting success. In 2017, the National's seventh studio album, Sleep Well Beast, reached a career-high number two, while Planetarium, a genre-bending collaboration between Dessner, Nico Muhly, Sufjan Stevens, and James McAlister, placed just outside the top half of the Billboard 200. Katia and Marielle Labèque's 2019 album Dessner: El Chan consisted entirely of Dessner compositions, and he was one of three members of the National to provide the songs for the film musical Cyrano in 2021. He continued to compose for film in the early 2020s, scoring Alejandro G. Inarritu's Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths, and Rebecca Miller's She Came to Me.

Bryce Dessner and his twin brother Aaron have played music since childhood. One of their various endeavors as young adults was Project Nim, whose other members included Bryan Devendorf. Bryce went on to earn both his bachelor's and master's degree in music at Yale. Aaron joined Matt Berninger and brothers Bryan and Scott Devendorf to form the National in New York in 1999. In 2001, just as the National released their first album on the Brassland Records label -- co-founded by the Dessner brothers and Alec Hanley Bemis -- Bryce was added to the group on guitar, solidifying a lineup that would remain intact throughout their rise to mainstream success. He also joined some of his Yale classmates, including Padma Newsome, to form Clogs, an ensemble collaboratively creating primarily acoustic instrumental music. They issued the debut album Thom's Night Out that October.

Dessner founded the Cincinnati-based MusicNOW Festival in 2006. With a focus contemporary composition, over the years it has featured an international roster of guests ranging from Glenn Kotche, Bell Orchestre, So Percussion, and Sufjan Stevens to the Kronos Quartet, the Cincinnati Symphony, and the Lone Bellow. He's also directed festivals in Brooklyn, London, and Cork, Ireland, some combining other arts with music.

Arriving on Brassland in 2003, the National's sophomore LP, Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers, reunited the band with producer Nick Lloyd and introduced Newsome, who contributed violin, viola, and string arrangements. That year, Clogs released Lullaby for Sue, following it with Stick Music in 2004. The National returned in 2005 with Alligator, which also featured strings by Newsome as well as piano and organ by Newsome and Lloyd. It marked their debut on the Beggars Banquet label. The Clogs recording Lantern arrived on Brassland and Talitres Records in 2006. Back with the National, their fourth full-length, Boxer, proved a commercial breakthrough in 2007. Featuring expanded instrumentation, including woodwinds and brass, keyboards by Thomas Bartlett (Doveman), and production by the band and Peter Katis, it reached number 68 on the Billboard 200. Boxer charted higher in countries including countries in the U.K., New Zealand, and Finland. A year later, they issued The Virginia EP, a collection of unreleased songs, B-sides, demos, and live recordings. The National signed with 4AD for their fifth studio LP, High Violet. Released in 2010, it embraced the more cinematic sound of Boxer with guests who included not only Newsome and Bartlett but such names as Sufjan Stevens, Nico Muhly, Nadia Sirota, Bon Iver's Justin Vernon, and Arcade Fire's Richard Reed Parry. High Violet landed in the Top Three in the U.S., Canada, and a handful of European countries, and reached number five in the U.K. Dessner also released an album (The Creatures in the Garden of Lady Walton) and two EPs (Veil Waltz and Last Song EP) with Clogs in 2010. The album featured Newsome along with Berninger, Sufjan Stevens, and Aaron Dessner.

Meanwhile, in the late 2000s and early 2010s, Bryce Dessner began receiving commissions from organizations such as the American Composers Forum and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. A commission from the Kronos Quartet, Aheym (2009), was the first to bring him wider attention and was the centerpiece on a Kronos 2013 disc devoted to his music. St. Carolyn by the Sea (2011), a double concerto for electric guitars, commissioned in part by Muziekgebouw Eindhoven, along with two other Dessner works, was paired with film music by Jonny Greenwood for its premiere recording performed by the Copenhagen Philharmonic and Andre de Ridder, released in 2014 on Deutsche Grammophon. Among other notable Dessner creations are the Top 20 classical album Music for Wood and Strings, for So Percussion, which was performed on instruments designed by Dessner and Aron Sanchez; and Murder Ballades from Eighth Blackbird's Grammy-nominated album Filament. Another Grammy-nominated album with Dessner's name on it was the National's 2013 release Trouble Will Find Me, on which he worked as producer and orchestrator as well as performer. That album had similar chart placements to its predecessor, High Violet, and also featured Bartlett, Muhly, Parry, and Stevens alongside over a dozen other instrumentalists. Sharon Van Etten, Nona Marie Invie, and St. Vincent's Annie Clark sang on the record. In 2013, Dessner also became composer-in-residence at Muziekgebouw Eindhoven for a three-year period. During the residency, his band released the nine-LP box set Lot of Sorrow (2015), which captured a live, MoMA-hosted performance art collaboration with Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson from 2013. Dessner also contributed to the soundtrack for the Oscar-winning film The Revenant (2015), and a score he wrote with his brother Aaron for the 2016 thriller Transpecos received a soundtrack release on Milan Records.

In 2017, 4AD released Planetarium, a collaborative work inspired by the Solar System that featured music by Dessner, Muhly, Stevens, and drummer James McAlister (Ester Drang). The same year, the National's third studio album for 4AD and seventh overall, Sleep Well Beast, went to number two in the U.S. and topped the charts in Canada, Ireland, and the U.K. Sleep Well Beast also won the National a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album in early 2018. Boxer: Live in Brussels saw release later in 2018, and the National returned in May 2019 with their eighth studio album, I Am Easy to Find. Inspired by a collaboration with filmmaker Mike Mills, it reached number one on the U.S. Top Rock Albums chart and showcased cameos by a number of female vocalists, including Gail Ann Dorsey, Eve Owen, and Sharon Van Etten. Also in 2019, Dessner collaborated with Will Oldham and Eighth Blackbird on When We Are Inhuman, which was part of Dessner's Murder Ballades series, and the Katia and Marielle Labèque recording Dessner: El Chan consisted of three works by Dessner, including a concerto for two pianos. Meanwhile, Aaron Dessner's high-profile production efforts for Taylor Swift led to the National appearing on "Coney Island" from Swift's 2020 album Evermore. After contributing a cover of INXS' "Never Tear Us Apart" to the bushfire relief charity album Songs for Australia, the band returned in 2021 with the original song "Somebody Desperate" for the Cyrano soundtrack. The film musical featured lyrics by Matt Berninger and Carin Besser and music by Bryce and Aaron Dessner.

On his own, Bryce Dessner continued to compose for a number of notable films. In 2022, he scored the semi-autobiographical Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths for Alejandro G. Inarritu. The following year, his work was featured in Rebecca Miller's She Came to Me and Zach Braff's A Good Person. Tracks from those soundtracks would make their way on to Dessner's debut album for Sony Classical, 2024's Solos, alongside various collaborative pieces he has written over the last few years. ~ Patsy Morita & Marcy Donelson