Cliburn Concerts: Emanuel Ax, piano

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The Cliburn

Emanuel Ax

“His greatness, his overwhelming authority as musician, technician and probing intellect emerges quickly as he plays. Within minutes, we are totally captured by his intensity and pianistic achievement.”

— Los Angeles Times

He was born to Polish parents—both Holocaust survivors—in 1949 in what is now Lviv, Ukraine. They moved to Winnipeg, Canada, when he was a young boy and eventually settled in Manhattan in an apartment across the street from Carnegie Hall.

In 1973, he debuted in his adopted hometown. “A young pianist with the hard-to-forget name of Emanuel Ax has one thing going for him before he plays a note,” The New York Times critic wrote. “But brand identification, as advertising men term it, helps in the long run only if the product delivers, and Mr. Ax’s recital at Alice Tully Hall on Monday night fortunately carried the stamp of quality.” That quality created one of the most lasting and impactful careers known by an American pianist.

20 Grammy nominations and eight wins. A touring career that has taken him to every major venue and orchestra in the world. An Avery Fisher Prize. A commitment to new music resulting in a long list of world premieres. Profound chamber partnerships, including five decades of collaboration with Yo-Yo Ma. Honorary doctorates from Skidmore College, New England Conservatory of Music, Yale University, and Columbia University. As the headline of a recent The New York Times profile put it: “For 50 Years, Emanuel Ax Has Made Music Sound Simply Right.”

He’s easily in the top rank of international piano stars, and he returns to the intimate Kimbell Art Museum with a program of Fantasies (Beethoven, Corigliano, Schumann) that he’ll play later that month at Carnegie Hall and the Chicago Symphony Center. Get your tickets right away.