*Emanuel Ax*
Emanuel Ax is renowned not only for his poetic temperament and unsurpassed virtuosity, but also for the exceptional breadth of his performing activity. Each season his distinguished career includes appearances with major symphony orchestras worldwide, recitals in the most celebrated concert halls, a variety of chamber music collaborations, the commissioning and performance of new music, and additions to his acclaimed discography on Sony Classical.
Mr. 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. He has been an exclusive Sony Classical recording artist since 1987, making his debut on that label with a collection of Chopin scherzos and mazurkas. His releases over the last few years have included a Grammy-award winning album of Haydn Piano Sonatas, the two Liszt concertos, paired with the Schoenberg Concerto,- three solo Brahms albums, and an album of tangos by Astor Piazzolla. His newest releases include period-instrument performances of Chopin’s complete works for piano and orchestra (on two discs) and the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2 with Bernard Haitink and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Also recently released is his recording of John Adams’ concerto _Century Rolls_ with the Cleveland Orchestra for Nonesuch.
In recent years Mr. Ax has turned his attention toward the music of 20th-century composers, performing works by such diverse figures as Sir Michael Tippett, Hans Werner Henze, Paul Hindemith, Ezra Laderman, Peter Lieberson, Joseph Schwantner, William Bolcom, André Previn and Aaron Copland. He gave the world premiere of John Adams’ _Century Rolls_ in September 1997 with the Cleveland Orchestra, followed in 1988 by the European premiere of the work with the Concertgebouw Orchestra. He has continued to play _Century Rolls_ with such ensembles as the Chicago Symphony, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony, and in April 2000 he gave the New York premiere of the work at Carnegie Hall with the Cleveland Orchestra. In May 1999 he gave the premiere of another concerto written for him, _Seeing_ for Piano and Orchestra by Christopher Rouse, with the New York Philharmonic. In January 2000, Mr. Ax joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra for the first performance of a new work by Bright Sheng, _Red Silk Dance_, which he repeated with the New York Philharmonic in November 2000.
New music will figure prominently in another of Mr. Ax’s notable undertakings during the 2001-02 season: the world premiere of Krzystof Penderecki’s piano concerto with the Philadelphia Orchestra and its Music Director Wolfgang Sawallisch, which he will perform both in Carnegie Hall and in Philadelphia. Other highlights of his season include a duo recital tour with pianist Yefim Bronfman, the gala opening concert of Philadelphia’s New Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, with Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman and the Philadelphia Orchestra; and performances with the Israel Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, NHK Symphony in Tokyo, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Montreal Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, National Symphony and the Toronto Symphony.
Devoted to chamber music literature, Mr. Ax regularly collaborates with such artists as Young Uck-Kim, Cho-Liang Lin, Yo-Yo Ma, Peter Serkin, Isaac Stern and Jaime Laredo. He has made a series of acclaimed recordings with Mr. Ma, and as a duo they have won three Grammy awards for the Beethoven and Brahms sonatas for cello and piano. The pair has also teamed with Richard Stoltzman for a Grammy award-winning album of clarinet trios and with Pamela Frank, Rebecca Young and Edgar Meyer for the Schubert _Trout_ Quintet. The Ax-Stern-Laredo-Ma Quartet has toured and recorded extensively in recent seasons, including piano quartets of Beethoven, Brahms, Dvorak, Faur£, Mozart and Schumann for Sony Classical. Mr. Ax’s two-piano program with Yefim Bronfman of works by Rachmaninoff will be released by Sony Classical in conjunction with their tour this fall.
Born in Lvov, Poland, Emanuel Ax moved to Winnipeg, Canada, with his family when he was a young boy. His studies in the Pre-College Divisions of Julliard were greatly supported by the sponsorship of the Epstein Scholarship Program of the Boys Clubs of America, and he subsequently won the Young Concert Artists Award. His piano teacher was Mierczylaw Munz.
Mr. Ax, a graduate of Columbia University, where he majored in French, resides in New York City with his wife, pianist Yoko Nozaki, their son, Joseph, and their daughter, Sarah.
*Yefim Bronfman*
Yefim Bronfman is widely regarded as one of the most talented virtuoso pianists performing today. His commanding technique and exceptional lyrical gifts have won him consistent critical acclaim and enthusiastic audiences worldwide, whether for his solo recitals, his prestigious orchestral engagements or his rapidly growing catalogue of recordings.
His 2000-01 season takes him again to the world’s great orchestras, including those of Baltimore, Boston, Cincinnati, Dallas, Los Angeles, Minnesota, New York, Pittsburgh, Seattle and Toronto in North America, as well as the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, the NDR Symphony Orchestra of Hamburg, the Maggio Musical Orchestra of Florence, the NHK Symphony of Tokyo and the Philharmonia Orchestra of London. He also gives a series of recitals with Lorin Maazel, who as violinist performs with Mr. Bronfman the complete Brahms Sonatas at Carnegie Hall and in Berlin, London, Madrid, Milan, Munich, Paris and Vienna, among other cities — part of a worldwide celebrations marking Maestro Maazel’s 70th birthday.
Among the highlights of Mr. Bronfman’s 1999–2000 season were concerts with the Philadelphia Orchestra on its three-week centennial tour of Europe (as well as in Philadelphia and at Carnegie Hall); a Beethoven Concerto cycle with Lorin Maazel and the Bayerischer Rundfunk Symphony Orchestra in Munich, a European tour with the Oslo Philharmonic led by Mariss Jansons, and two recitals devoted to Beethoven and Berg at Alice Tully Hall, a sequel to his Schumann and Prokoviev series there in 1996–97. In December 1999, Mr. Bronfman joined James Levine and the Philharmonia Orchestra of London for a special tour to premiere Disney’s _Fantasia 2000_, on whose soundtrack Mr. Bronfman performs the Shostakovich Piano Concerto No. 2. The series of gala screenings with live music took place in New York, London, Paris, Tokyo and Los Angeles.
In previous seasons, Mr. Bronfman has appeared with such celebrated ensembles as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Dresden Staatskapelle, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the London Philharmonic, the London Symphony, the Orchestra de Paris, the Royal Concertgebauw Orchestra an the Vienna Philharmonic. He has worked with an equally illustrious group of conductors, including Daniel Berenboim, Herbert Blomstedt, Christoph voi Dohnanyi, Charles Dutoit, Christopher Eschenbach, Valery Gergiev, Maris Jansons, Lorin Maazel, Kurt Masur, Zubin Mehta, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Yuri Temirkanov, Franz Welser-Moest and David Zinman. His summer engagemen have regularly taken him to the Aspen, Bad Kissingen, Blossom, Hollywooc Bowl, Mann Music Center, Mostly Mozart, Ravinia, Salzburg, Saratoga, Tanglewood and Verbier festivals. He has also given numerous solo recitals in the leading halls of North America, Europe and the Far East, including acclaimed debuts at Carnegie Hall in 1989 and Avery Fisher Hall in 1993. I 1991 he gave a series of joint recitals with Isaac Stern in Russia, marking Mr. Bronfman’s first public performances there since his emigration to Israel at age 15. That same year he was awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Prize, one of the highest honors given to American instrumentalists.
An exclusive Sony Classical recording artist, Mr. Bronfman has won widespread praise for his solo, chamber and orchestral recordings. He won a Grammy award in 1997 for his recording of the three Bartok Piano Concert with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. His discograph also includes the complete Prokoviev Piano Sonatas, all five of the Prokofiev Piano Concertos, nominated for both Grammy and Gramophone awards, Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concertos Nos. 2 and 3; recital albums featuring Mussgorsky’s _Pictures at an Exhibition_ and Stravinsky’s _Three Scenes from Petrouchka_, and Tchaikovsky’s _The Seasons_ paired with Balakirev’s _Islamey_, and the Tchaikovsky and Arensky Piano Trios with Cho-Liang Li and Gary Hoffman. His recordings with Isaac Stern include the Brahms Violin Sonatas from their aforementioned Russian tour, a cycle of the Moza Sonatas for Violin and Piano and, most recently, the Bartok Violin Sonatas Coinciding with the release of the “Fantasia 2000” soundtrack, Mr. Bronfman was featured on his own Shostakovich album, performing two Piano Concertos and the Piano Quintet. Planned for release this season on Sony Classical is his two-piano recital with Emanuel Ax.
