Celebrity Series of Boston Presents Pianist Emanuel Ax

Celebrity Series of Boston will present Emanuel Ax, piano on Sunday, October 28, 2018 at 3pm at Symphony Hall, 301 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston, MA.

Tickets start at $45 and are available online at www.celebrityseries.org, by calling (617) 482-6661 Monday-Friday 10:00 a.m.- 4:00 p.m., or at Symphony Hall’s Hall Box Office, 301 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston, MA.

This performance marks Emanuel Ax’s 29th performance with the Celebrity Series; he made his debut in 1980 with Young Uck Kim in the Yo-Yo Ma trio and was seen most recently in February 2018 with Leonidas Kavakos and Yo-Yo Ma. His last solo performance with the Celebrity Series was in 2016.

Born in modern day 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 made his New York debut in the Young Concert Artists Series, and captured public 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.

Always a committed exponent of contemporary composers, with works written for him by John Adams, Christopher Rouse, Krzysztof Penderecki, Bright Sheng, and Melinda Wagner already in his repertoire, most recently he has added HK Gruber’s Piano Concerto and Samuel Adams’ “Impromptus”.

A Sony Classical exclusive recording artist since 1987, recent releases include Mendelssohn Trios with Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman, Strauss’ Enoch Arden narrated by Patrick Stewart, and discs of two-piano music by Brahms and Rachmaninoff with Yefim Bronfman. In 2015 Deutche Grammophon released a duo recording with Mr. Perlman of Sonatas by Faure and Strauss, which the two artists presented on tour during the 2015/2016 season. 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 cellist Yo-Yo Ma of the Beethoven and Brahms sonatas for cello and piano.

PROGRAM:
Johannes Brahms: The Rhapsodies, Opus 79
No. 1 in B minor, Agitato
No. 2 in G minor, Molto passionato, ma non troppo allegro
George Benjamin: Piano Figures
Robert Schumann: Fantasiestücke, Opus 12
Maurice Ravel: Valses nobles et sentimentales
Frédéric Chopin: Mazurkas, Opus 50
No. 1 in G MajorNo. 2 in A-flat Major
No. 3 in C-sharp minor

This performance is an Aaron Richmond Recital, endowed by Nancy Richmond Winsten and the late Dr. Joseph Winsten, and is generously sponsored in part by Dorothy and Stephen Weber. Media partner is 99.5 WCRB