Marielle Labèque

Younger of the two Labèque sisters, born in 1952, Marielle was taught first by their mother, a pupil of Marguerite Long, and then at the Paris Conservatoire, from which she graduated in 1968. The duo's Rhapsody in Blue of 1980 sold half a million copies; since then the sisters have appeared with the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the London Symphony, and have commissioned new works for two pianos. Luciano Berio, Philip Glass, Louis Andriessen, Osvaldo Golijov, Michael Nyman and Bryce Dessner have all written for them. They have also worked with Thomas Adès. In 2024 they were appointed Commanders of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Their mother was the Italian pianist Ada Cecchi, and at the Conservatoire they studied with Lucette Descaves, each taking a Premier Prix in 1968. Still students, at seventeen and nineteen, the sisters recorded Messiaen's Visions de l'Amen under the composer's own supervision. Her husband is the conductor Semyon Bychkov, she has lived in Rome since 2005, and the duo played in Bulgaria for the first time in 2022.