Six-time Grammy Award-winning pianist Emanuel Ax will perform a classical repertoire of Beethoven and Schumann selections Friday, Feb. 29 at 8 p.m. in Memorial Chapel.
Ax is currently on a solo recital tour in Europe and North America that will take him to celebrated venues such as London’s Wigmore Hall, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and New York’s Carnegie Hall. In his third Concert Series performance, he will perform Beethoven’s Sonata in A Major, Op. 2, No. 2 and Sonata No. 23 in F minor, Op. 57, “Appassionata.” Selections from Schumann will include “Humoreske” in B-flat Major, Op. 20 and “Papillons,” Op. 2.
Born in Lvov, Poland, Emanuel Ax moved to Winnipeg, Canada with his family when he was a young boy where he studied at The Juilliard School through the Epstein Scholarship Program of the Boys Clubs of America. Ax captured public attention in 1974 when, at age 25, he won the first Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition in Tel Aviv. In 1975, he won the Michaels Award of Young Concert Artists and, four years later, took the coveted Avery Fisher Prize.
Recording exclusively for Sony Classical since 1987, Ax won Grammy Awards for his second and third volumes in the recording cycle of Haydn Piano Sonatas. Performing with Yo-Yo Ma, he’s won three Grammy Awards for the Beethoven and Brahms sonatas for cello and piano; the pair also teamed with Richard Stoltzman for a Grammy Award-winning album of clarinet trios.
A French major at Columbia University, Ax holds an honorary doctorate of music from Yale University. Last fall, he was inducted as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. He resides in New York City with his wife, pianist Yoko Nozaki.
The concert is free for the Union College community, $25 for general admission and $10 for area students. For tickets, call (518) 388-6080; for more information on the Series, call (518) 372-3651 or visit http://www.union.edu/ConcertSeries.