Emanuel Ax, Piano
Born in Lvov, Poland, Emanuel Ax moved to Winnipeg, Canada, with his family when he was a young boy. His studies at The Juilliard School were supported by the sponsorship of the Epstein Scholarship Program of the Boys Clubs of America, and he subsequently won the Young Concert Artists Award. Additionally, he attended Columbia University, where he majored in French. Mr. Ax captured the public's attention in 1974 when he won the first Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition in Tel Aviv. In 1975, he won the Michaels Award of Young Concert Artists, followed four years later by the coveted Avery Fisher Prize.
In recognition of the bicentenaries of Chopin and Schumann in 2010 and in partnership with London's Barbican, Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, Carnegie Hall, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the San Francisco Symphony, Mr. Ax has commissioned new works from composers Peter Lieberson, Osvaldo Golijov, and Thomas Adès for three recital programs to be presented in each of those cities with colleagues Yo-Yo Ma and Dawn Upshaw.
In addition to this large-scale project, Mr. Ax recently toured Asia with the New York Philharmonic on its first tour with Music Director Alan Gilbert. He will also tour Europe with both the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and James Conlon, as well as the Pittsburgh Symphony with Manfred Honeck. Mr. Ax has been an exclusive Sony Classical recording artist since 1987. Recent releases include Richard Strauss's Enoch Arden, narrated by Patrick Stewart; discs of two-piano music by Brahms and Rachmaninoff with Yefim Bronfman; and Mendelssohn trios with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and violinist Itzhak Perlman. Mr. Ax has received Grammy Awards for the second and third volumes of his cycle of Haydn's piano sonatas. He has also made a series of Grammy-winning recordings with Yo-Yo Ma of the Beethoven and Brahms sonatas for cello and piano. His other recordings include the concertos of Liszt and Schoenberg, three solo Brahms albums, an album of tangos by Astor Piazzolla, and the premiere recording of John Adams's Century Rolls with The Cleveland Orchestra for Nonesuch.
Mr. Ax resides in New York City with his wife, pianist Yoko Nozaki. They have two children together, Joseph and Sarah. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and holds honorary doctorates of music from Yale and Columbia universities. Visit emanuelax.com for more information.
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