M&M Piano Duo
Kanae Matsumoto Giampietro
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.
Kanae currently resides in New York City and works with classical singers. She is a vocal coach and artistic staff at Manhattan School of Music and a staff pianist at the Juilliard School. In 2016-2024, she was a vocal coach at the Marlena Malas’ Opera Conservatory at Chautauqua Institution. She is also a founding member of M&M Piano Duo, with Canadian pianist Martin Dubé.
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. Highlights of her collaborative performances include the recitals with the late Jacques Israelievitch, former concert master of Toronto Symphony, performing the complete Beethoven Violin Sonatas and the complete Brahms Violin and Viola Sonatas. With Mr. Israelievich, she also released a CD “French Violin Sonatas” (works by Pierné, Debussy, Poulenc, and Ravel) from the Fleur de Son Classics/Naxos label.
As a solo pianist, she has performed internationally, in the United States, Italy, Germany, Russia, and Japan. She was a featured soloist at the World Design Expo at her home town Nagoya, Japan (2005). In addition to the modern piano, she is also interested in performance practice of historical instruments and 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.
In addition to the historical performance, Ms. Matsumoto is passionate about collaborating with living composers. She has worked with many composers including John Williams, Paul Chihara, Lori Laitman, Ben Moore, and Ricky Ian Gordon.
Ms. Matsumoto 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. She now resides in Brooklyn, New York with her husband John Matsumoto Giampietro, stage director and acting teacher, enjoying their professional and personal journeys together. Her important teachers have included Vitaly Margulis and Marlena Malas.
Martin Dubé
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 the renowned 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 has taught at the Conservatoire de Musique de Québec and served as a voice coach at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University. Most recently, he has been appointed to be the head coach of Atelier lyrique, artist-in-residence program, of Opera de Montreal, starting from September 2024.