Katia & Marielle Labèque

Katia Labèque piano
Marielle Labèque piano

Debussy Six épigraphes antiques (original version for piano duo)
Ravel Ma mère l’Oye (original version for piano four hands)
Philip Glass, arr. Michael Riesman Les Enfants Terribles after Jean Cocteau

The magnificent Labèque sisters make a long-overdue return to Manchester with a typically enthralling two-piano programme.

Katia and Marielle Labèque ‘have transformed the piano duo’, in the words of the New York Times – and five decades after launching their twin careers, they’re continuing to break new ground.

Tonight’s concert begins in Belle Époque Paris with a pair of suites written four years apart: Debussy’s rarely played set of six ethereally beautiful miniatures; and Mother Goose, written by Debussy’s friend-cum-rival Maurice Ravel and heard here in the composer’s original piano-duet arrangement.

Then, in true Labèque style, it’s time for something completely different: Philip Glass’s opera Les Enfants Terrible in a two-piano arrangement created by long-time Glass collaborator Michael Riesman. ‘Great performers and great interpreters,’ says Glass of the siblings.