M&M Piano Duo 

Since their sensational debut performance of Ravel’s La Valse in the summer of 2019), M&M Piano Duo has been entertaining Chautauqua audiences each summer since with a variety of repertoire. M&M Piano Duo is named after their initials (Martin Dubé and Kanae Matsumoto Gimpietro) and their beloved mentor Marlena Malas. 

Martin Dubé was born in Montmagny and studied piano with Michel Franck and Robert Weisz at Laval University before completing a Master’s degree in chamber music with Marina Mdivani at McGill University. He also worked with Dale Bartlett and Michael McMahon. He then became a fellow of the Manhattan School of Music in New York, studying vocal coaching and piano accompaniment with the distinguished teacher Warren Jones. 

He collaborated with the American mezzo-soprano Vivica Genaux to perform a recital at the Caramoor International Music Festival, New York, and also in Juneau, Fairbanks, San Diego, Pittsburgh, and San Remo in Italy. He made a recording, “An evening of Arias and Songs”, dedicated to the works of Rossini with Ms. Genaux at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Hall. Martin Dubé has performed in many recital halls including Alice Tully Hall, Steinway Hall, Weill Hall, and Merkin Hall of New York, and in many cities such as Chicago, Philadelphia, Santa Barbara, Huntsville (Chamber Music Guild), Damascus, Toronto, Montréal, and Québec. With the soprano Hélène Guilmette, he has performed in recitals at the Istanbul Music Festival in Turkey, and at the Bastille Amphitheatre of the Opéra National de Paris, the Capitole de Toulouse and in Tours in France. This collaboration gave birth to a recording in 2015 under the Analekta label. The album, “L’heure Rose”, is dedicated to French melodies of female composers of the 19th and 20th centuries. 

From 1997 to 2000, Martin Dubé was an associate vocal coach at the Juilliard School in New York, and since the summer of 1997, at the Chautauqua Institution (Chautauqua Opera Company and Conservatory) in the United States, where he teaches alongside therenowned voice teacher Marlena Malas. For the 2005-2006 season, Monsieur Dubé worked at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and was also a rehearsal pianist for the productions by Opera Philadelphia. He was a vocal coach for the Opéra de Montréal’s Atelier lyrique for more than 20 years and is one of the official accompanists for the Concours musical international de Montréal for voice. 

Monsieur Dubé has accompanied masterclasses given by several renowned artists including Elly Ameling, Sherill Milnes, Marilyn Horne, Martin Katz, Marlena Malas, Licia Albanese, Leontyne Price, Benita Valente, Renata Scotto, Dawn Upshaw and Michael Eliasen, to name but a few. 

In February 1999, he was the rehearsal pianist and harpsichordist for the production of Così fan Tutte by San Diego Opera. His performances have been broadcast on WQXR-FM, New York Public Radio, and many times by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 

During his studies, Martin Dubé received scholarship awards from the Fondation Desjardins, the Richelieu Clubs, the Fonds FCAR, the Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec, and the Music Academy of the West in California. 

Monsieur Dubé is currently one of the most sought-after accompanists and coaches by professional singers in the province of Quebec. He also teaches at the Conservatoire de Musique de Québec and he is a voice coach at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University. 

Praised as an “outstanding pianist...unfailingly crisp, warm and sensitive” (Showtime Magazine, Toronto), Kanae Matsumoto Giampietro is a versatile pianist, having extensively diversified her repertoire from solo, chamber to vocal music.  

This is Kanae’s 18th summer at Chautauqua, where she serves as vocal coach at the Opera  Conservatory. In the previous years, she has appeared in many of Resident Artist Chamber  Music Series and Faculty Recitals at Chautauqua including with Canadian pianist Martin Dubé as  M&M Piano Duo, with flutist Richard Sherman, and with the late violinist Jacque Israelievitch  (the complete Beethoven Violin Sonatas and the complete Brahms and Violin and Viola  Sonatas.) As a member of Chautauqua Trio, she performed Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio Op. 50 with  Vahn Armstrong, violin and Jolyon Pegis, cello in the summer of 2023.  

During the year, Kanae resides in New York City and works as vocal coach at Manhattan School of Music and a staff pianist at Juilliard School. Before focusing on the collaboration with singers, she was a sought-after chamber musician in Los Angeles and appeared in numerous recitals and concerts including the chamber music concert series with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Chamber Society at the Walt Disney Concert Hall.  

As a solo pianist, she has performed internationally, in the United States, Italy, Germany, Russia, and Japan. She was a featured soloist at the 2005 World Design Expo at her home town Nagoya, Japan. In addition to the modern piano, she is also interested in performance practice of historical instruments and has recorded works by the classical and romantic composers including Beethoven, Haydn, Schubert, Schumann, and Chopin on their period instruments in collaboration with Robert Portillo, instrument restoration specialist in Los Angeles. Passionate about performing new works, Kanae has worked with many living composers including John Williams, Paul Chihara, Lori Laitman, Ben Moore, and Ricky Ian Gordon.  

Kanae completed her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Piano Performance at Aichi Prefectural University of Fine Arts and Music in Nagoya, Japan. To continue her studies, she moved to Los Angeles and earned her Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of California Los Angeles. After graduation, she was invited to join the faculty of the University and taught there for 7 years. In 2013 she relocated herself to NYC, where she now enjoys her professional and personal journeys. Her important teachers include Vitaly Margulis and Marlena Malas.