Emanuel Ax

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Ax, Ma & Perlman Perform as a Piano Trio for the First Time

Emanuel Ax to Recieve The 2009 Institute for the Arts and Humanities Medal

From The Columbus Dispatch: "Big-league pianist steps up to plate to help orchestra

"Ax What You Can Do For Your Country" - Alex Ross on his blog The Rest is Noise

"Conductor, pianist inspire grandness" - Concert Review in The Columbus Dispatch

New Blog Post - "A Few More Thoughts on Applause"

From The Boston Globe: "Manny Ax is My New Hero"

Alan Gilbert, The New York Philharmonic's new music director, speaks about Emanuel Ax during press conference.

Read The New York Times Review of Emanuel Ax's Concert at Avery Fisher Hall

Join Emanuel Ax's Blog Network

See Emanuel Ax Live in 2008/2009

LA Times Review

Seattle Post Intelligencer Review

Star-Ledger Feature

Schenectady's Daily Gazette Feature

Emanuel Ax's New Official Blog

Ax, Ma & Perlman Perform as a Piano Trio for the First Time
Emanuel Ax will be joined by cellist Yo-Yo Ma and violinist Itzhak Perlman for a twice in a lifetime experience when they perform for the first time as a piano trio. The superstar trio will debut at Penn State's Eisenhower Auditorium on March 30 and will before the following evening at New York's Carnegie Hall. The program celebrates the bicentennial of Felix Mendelssohn's birth. They will perform an all-Mendelssohn program with Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op. 49 and Piano Trio No. 2 in C minor, Op. 66. Penn State PreViews magazine has a series of interviews and articles with the musicians. Click here to be redirected to the magazine's online edition. For more information and to inquire about tickets to the Penn State concert, click here and here for Carnegie Hall. Top
Emanuel Ax to Recieve The 2009 Institute for the Arts and Humanities Medal
University Park, Pa. -- The 2009 Institute for the Arts and Humanities Medals for Distinguished Contributions to the Arts and Humanities will be awarded to world-renowned pianist Emanuel Ax, violinist Itzhak Perlman and cellist Yo-Yo Ma on March 30. The medals will be presented by Penn State president Graham Spanier, immediately following the musicians' sold-out concert starting at 7:30 p.m. on March 30 in Eisenhower Auditorium at the University Park campus. The three outstanding musicians make their world premiere performance as a trio as part of the Center for the Performing Arts 2008-2009 season. The IAH Medal for Distinguished Contributions to the Arts and Humanities was established in 2006. The purpose of the medal is to honor individuals whose work has helped define the best of our times and to stimulate a dialogue that reaches beyond traditional disciplinary limits. The medal recognizes the accomplishments of those individuals whose work in the arts and in the humanities has furthered public awareness of the importance of scholarship, literature and the arts and has reached a wide public audience while maintaining the highest standards of scholarship, creativity and originality. Previous IAH medal recipients include Salman Rushdie ( novelist, essayist: 2006 ), Daniel Libeskind ( architect: 2007 ) and Mario Vargas Llosa ( novelist, essayist, political activist: 2008 ). Click here for more information on the IAH medal. Exclusive interviews with each of the three musicians can be heard as podcasts on Previews, the Center for the Performing Arts multimedia magazine. From Media Newswire Top
From The Columbus Dispatch: "Big-league pianist steps up to plate to help orchestra
The Columbus Dispatch By Gary Budzak Manny Ramirez, a baseball outfielder, will make $25 million this season -- or more than $150,000 a game. Emanuel Ax, as much a superstar in classical music and also a Manny, volunteered to perform twice this weekend with the Columbus Symphony and not be paid a dime. The pianist "agreed to waive his fee for this concert weekend in light of all our recent difficulties," said Tony Beadle, executive director of the orchestra. "We didn't ask him." The fee would have been "substantial," Beadle said. Columbus remains a favorite touring stop for the world-class musician. "I first came to Columbus, I think it was about 30 years ago," Ax, 59, said recently from his New York home. "I've known people for that long, and now I'm beginning to meet the children of those people. "The reason that I'm happy about going down to Columbus, about coming to play, is that it's always been a wonderful orchestra. "It's always been full of really nice people, and I think it's just an incredible tragedy if this orchestra were not to exist. . . . It would be just horrible." Such praise is returned. "He's one of the best-known and one of the most wonderful artists in our midst at this time," Beadle said. "He's in great demand around the country. "I think he's technically perfect, and, musically, he's a great artist. He takes every piece, makes it his own and gives us new insight into the music he plays." Ax, who was born in Poland, started playing at age 6. He lived in Canada before moving to New York, where he became a U.S. citizen in 1970. Married to a pianist, he has two children. Ax has won seven Grammy Awards and an honorary doctorate in music, both from Yale University. He isn't concerned about prizes, though. "I think, for someone like me, it's more of a process rather than any individual things," he said. "I hope I'm improving, and that's the big thing for musicians, you know -- just to keep working and try your best to get better until you're too old to do it." Ax, known for his duets with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and quartets with Ma and violinists Isaac Stern and Jaime Laredo, typically champions new works. "It's very exciting for me to learn a new language sometimes and certainly to do things that haven't been heard before. That's very challenging because, unlike hearing other pieces on record and then learning them, this is really from scratch." For the weekend shows, however, Ax will play a piece more than a century old, from 1881: Piano Concerto No. 2 by Johannes Brahms, with guest conductor Jahja Ling leading the Columbus Symphony. "I think it's one of the most beloved piano concertos in the repertoire, and it's a tour de force for the pianist," Beadle said. "Like a lot of Brahms' music, it encompasses a wide emotional and musical range -- hence its popularity." Ax chose the work. "I know I've been playing it for a long, long time," he said. "It's one of my favorite pieces ever." Audiences, he said, "should let the music wash over them and just be completely taken on a huge ride of beauty and excitement." "I don't know if they have to listen for specific themes or anything like that, but I think it's a very majestic, very touching and very big piece. So I think all of those things will help us take our minds off . . . (the economy)." And, as he notes in his online blog, Ax doesn't mind if the audience applauds between the four movements. "Just one favor," he writes: "Even if you don't like a concert of mine, please, please applaud at the end anyway." Like an athlete, Ax has to prepare for his performances, he said. "I plan my day around the concert: I'll practice in the morning (as he does daily). I'll have lunch. I'll try and take a nap, get a little rest, come back around 6 (p.m.) and warm up and be ready to play for the evening." Despite the tough economic times, he remains optimistic about classical music. "I always like to see the glass as half-full. I think people actually really enjoy what we do, and I think there's actually a lot of interest in it."There are ups and downs, but . . . we're lucky enough to play composers like Brahms who have lasted for so many years. . . . There are always people and performers who want to do that music and hear that music, and I think that's the best sort of proof, I hope, that things will keep going." Top
"Ax What You Can Do For Your Country" - Alex Ross on The Rest is Noise.com
Ax what you can do for your country Drew McManus notes that Emanuel Ax generously waived his fee for his appearance this weekend at the financially troubled Columbus Symphony. "We didn't ask him," Columbus's executive director told the Columbus Dispatch. In the article, Ax continues his skeptical inquiry into the alleged "rule" forbidding applause between movements of a concerto or symphony. On his blog, he wonders why concert audiences behave this way when opera audiences applaud after arias. It's a good question, with no logical answer. The argument that opera is less "serious" than symphonic music won't hold up. Is Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin less serious than his First Piano Concerto? Is Don Giovanni less serious than, well, anything? For more, see my endless 2005 post on the history of concert-hall applause. Other pianoblogs: Hough, Biss, and, of course, Denk. www.therestisnoise.com Top
*Concert Review in The Columbus Dispatch -* Conductor, pianist inspire grandness**
By Barbara Zuck The Columbus Symphony continues to play in the major leagues this weekend with two guest artists who rightly earned international acclaim long ago. Guest conductor Jahja Ling's professional career got its start in Ohio with an acclaimed debut leading the Cleveland Orchestra, with which he subsequently had a long and fruitful relationship. And in the highly competitive realm of keyboard artists, there simply is no more important name than that of Emanuel Ax. Though Ax has performed in Columbus many times, one never tires of experiencing his genuine manner and sincere artistry. His performance was given added meaning last night because he has donated that appearance and tonight's to the orchestra, a magnanimous gesture. Ling's leadership of Dvorak's Symphony No. 8 certainly brought out the finest from the players. Notable moments in the first movement, for example, included the gleeful high gestures from the flute and piccolo and impressive statements from the trombones and timpani. Perhaps the one point with which to quibble in what was overall an outstanding reading was the overly deliberate tempo of the last movement, which dampened the music's natural sense of exuberance. Brahms' concerto writing is always highly symphonic and never more so than in the Piano Concerto No. 2 -- with four movements, a truly big piece in every way. With Ax at the keyboard and Ling at the helm, last night's performance was a grand meeting of like minds, beginning with ideal, unhurried tempo choices for each movement. It was not a case of bringing the composer down to size, which would be the wrong goal in any case, but of stepping up to meet the mighty Brahms at his own grand level. Ling's leadership produced rich playing from the orchestra beginning with a well-articulated opening solo from the horn. Ax found the perfect texture and intensity in playing that, while certainly conveying a sense of grandeur, consistently enunciated the pianist's particular point of view -- masterful, powerful, yet never strident. Of the many special ways in which the pianist approached this great music, none was more appreciated last night than his beautiful, lyrical playing of the slow themes. They are among the composer's finest achievements and were given their special due by Ax's honest, sincere playing. The Columbus Dispatch Top
New Blog Post: A Few More Thoughts on Applause: Why Can We Interrupt at the Met?
Read Emanuel Ax's new blog post, "A Few More Thoughts on Applause" by visiting www.emanuelax.wordpress.com. Join the Emanuel Ax Blog Network by clicking here. Top
From The Boston Globe: "I'm leading a one-man crusade as a listener to start applauding,"
From The Boston Globe, Make a joyful noise Classical audiences should loosen up and applaud at will By Sam Allis Manny Ax is my new hero. The eminent pianist has challenged a sacred rule that an audience must follow, on pain of death, while listening to an orchestra play classical music. The one that says never applaud between movements. Never, ever, ever. As in, don't even think about it. Most neophytes instinctively clap at the end of a movement they like before they learn better. And why not? The music was glorious and they want to reward the orchestra and/or performer. It is a visceral, immediate response that Ax finds as natural as it is commendable. But then the clappers never clap that way again. Why? Because they're treated like Ebola carriers when they do. No one else in the hall applauds. It's like clapping in the middle of an ocean. You are a tiny, low-rent atoll in a sea of alleged sophisticates. You cringe and think of the ad for Southwest Airlines that asks someone who has just made an egregious no-no, "Wanna get away?" Humiliation, quite simply, is the rite of passage to gain admission into the Grand Order of Aesthetes. (My favorite story comes from a friend in D.C. who in his youth had been a page-turner for a concert pianist. He started clapping at the end of a movement. No one else did. Said pianist stared at him. The audience stared at him. He had nowhere to hide. He was on stage, frozen in the spotlight like a butterfly on a pin. Imagine.) Emanuel Ax wants none of this. "I'm leading a one-man crusade as a listener to start applauding," he says. Ax simply finds the silence diktat silly. "We should welcome applause whenever it comes," he writes in his blog. "And yet, we seem to have set up some very arcane rules as to when it is actually OK to applaud. "I am always taken aback when I hear the first movement of a concerto which is supposed to be full of excitement, passion and virtuoso display [like the Brahms or Beethoven concertos], and then hear a rustling of clothing, punctuated by a few coughs; the sheer force of the music calls for a wild audience reaction. . . . If we feel like expressing approval, we should be allowed to, ANYTIME!" Atta boy, Manny. He adds, "Mozart often wrote to his family that certain variations or sections of pieces were so successful that they had to be encored immediately, even without waiting for the entire piece to end." Mark Volpe, general manager of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, agrees there is a snobbism attached to the vow of silence, and stands firmly with Ax on the applause issue. Volpe also recognizes that an orchestra's goal, particularly in these brutal economic times, must be to expand the classical audience, not terrify newcomers out of the hall. So how did this rule come into being? And who is the culprit behind it? "I've talked to many distinguished musicologists and none of them can figure out who's responsible," says Ax, who has studied the subject extensively. But he has a suspect - Richard Wagner, the brilliant, screamingly anti-Semitic, 19th-century German composer and conductor. The imperious Wagner came up with yet another one of those unpronounceable, unspellable German humdingers - "gesamptkunstwerk" - which means something along the lines of "the total work of art." According to gesamptkunstwerk, audiences can only appreciate the totality of his work by remaining as mute as dormice until the whole shebang is over. "This is an old, old argument," says the conductor André Previn about the applause wars. "There's nothing wrong with it unless it becomes habitual. It's like standing ovations. You get them if the music is not absolutely lousy." "It could bother me if it impinges on the mood of a piece," Previn adds. "If you clapped after the long Bruckner adagio, you'd be in big trouble. But would clapping between movements in general bother me as a conductor? No." Previn points out that in opera, applause after a strong aria is standard. And in jazz, as my friend Charlie notes, listeners routinely applaud during the music after a player ends a great riff. "This is about the trappings of music, not the music," says Ax of the Edict of Silence. "I think that if there were no 'rules' about when to applaud, we in the audience would have the right response almost always." He says people are beginning to applaud more between movements. He attends many concerts and, as a listener, applauds at will with his head held high. So listen up: the ball is in our court. Listeners must summon the gumption to applaud without wilting. But they also need cover from the stage to do so. There is a symbiotic relationship between performer and listener, says Ax, and each side needs to help the other. Ax is always supportive when clappers make noise: "I immediately turn to the audience and bow. We need to show we are responding to what the audiences are doing. I'm hoping it happens more and more." My man. For the record, Manny Ax is not pushing a carnival agenda. Veteran listeners at BSO concerts will always enjoy their silence between movements as a matter of custom and as a moment to digest what they've just heard. But they need to accommodate those who applaud from their hearts after a movement. As Republicans like to claim, it's a big tent. And it is time to loosen the strictures on how we listen to live classical music. Ax's crusade is a splendid one. On with the revolution: Liberté, egalité, fraternité. Top
Emanuel Ax mentioned in the Howard Kissel, of The New York Daily News' Blog - The Cultural Tourist
Alan Gilbert, the new music director of The New York Philharmonic, held a press conference to discuss the future of the orchestra and its programming. Howard Kissel, from The New York Daily News reports in his blog: "An example of the kind of programming Gilbert envisions is a concert that will feature Charles Ives' "Unanswered Question" and the Beethoven Fourth Piano Concerto. Emanuel Ax, Gilbert said, has agreed to perform the Beethoven right after the Ives. He accepted Gilbert's assessment that "the Ives ends nowhere and the Beethoven begins nowhere," and that perhaps the two pieces will shed light on each other". To read the full entry, please visit www.nydailynews.com Top
Read The New York Times Review of Emanuel Ax's Concert with the New York Philharmonic
By Allan Kozinn "The Szymanowski was the treat here. Its exotic harmonies and appealingly angular lines grab the attention and reward it with surprising turns and rich emotional undercurrents. Emanuel Ax played the piano line with luminous intensity and was particularly striking in passages that demanded a hair-trigger interplay between the piano and the orchestra, or when the piano writing was at its most rhythmically forceful. The Strauss, though heard more often, is a slighter work. But it offers pianistic thrills as well as a few moments of dreamy introspection, and Mr. Ax played it with the vitality and thoughtfulness listeners expect of him". To read the full review of the New York Philharmonic's concert, visit www.nytimes.com Top
Join Emanuel Ax's Blog Network
Emanuel Ax's critically acclaimed blog has a new home at Wordpress.com. Become a fan at Networked Blogs Top

See Emanuel Ax Live in 2008/2009

Emanuel Ax's 2008 & 2009 North American tour schedule is available by visiting the Tour page of emanuelax.com.

In November, Mr. Ax will be on tour with long-time collaborator, pianist Yefim Bronfman. They will be performing selection from Brahms, Bolcom, Mozart and Rachmaninoff. In December, Mr. Ax will perform at GPAC in Memphis with pianist Yoko Nozaki and the IRIS Orchestra and in Miami with Michael Tilson Thomas leading the New World Symphony. Following performances of Richard Strauss' Burleske for Piano and Orchestra with Lorin Maazel and the New York Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall and Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 1 with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Walt Disney Hall, Mr. Ax will begin a solo recital tour throughout the US and Canada. Audiences in California, Quebec, New Jersey and New York will be treated to a program featuring Schubert's Four Impromptus, Op. 142 and Sonata in A Major and Liszt's Vallee d'Obermann, Sonetto del Petrarca, No. 123 and Mephisto Waltz, No. 1.

In February and March, Mr. Ax will perform Brahms' Concerto for Piano No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15 with the Nashville Symphony and Leonard Slatkin in Laura Turner Concert Hall, Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 25 in C Major, K. 503 with Mariss Jansons and Germany's Bayerische Rundfunk in New York's Carnegie Hall and Brahms' Symphony No. 3 with Kent Nagano and the Orchestre Symponique de Montreal at the Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier.

For two nights only, Mr. Ax will join friends Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman for an all-star performance of Mendelssohn's Piano Trio in D minor, Op. 49 and Piano Trio No. 2 in C minor, Op. 66. This rare and certain to be extraordinary program will be performed only twice - on March 30th at Penn State's Eisenhower Auditorium and on March 31 at Carnegie Hall.

Mr. Ax's North American season ends with the world premiere of Stephen Hartke's Piano Concerto with the Kansas City Symphony and Michael Stern in April and with Yoko Nozaki, Toronto Symphony Orchestra and conductor Peter Oundjian's performing Bartok's Double Concerto and Burleske in June.

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Read the Los Angeles Times Rave Review from the Emanuel Ax & Yefim Bronfman Concert at Walt Disney Hall

From the Los Angeles Times
By Mark Swed

Manny and Fima are a couple of very well-liked guys who live in the same building on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. They come from the same part of the world and from countries that begin with the letter U: Manny was born in Ukraine, Fima in what is now Uzbekistan. Manny's the mensch with a flair for practical jokes. Fima's known to be a character. Like a lot of Eastern European Jewish emigrants to New York, they like to eat, but they have been watching their weight and lately have lost some.

They both have a casual, slightly schlumphy look. Fima, who is on the bearish side, turned 50 this year, and his hair is often mussed. A little more professorial in manner, Manny is nine years older. They have been friends since Fima arrived in the States, nearly 30 years ago. Sometimes they ride the subway together to work in the Lincoln Center area. Now and then they even take trips together. They are on one such trip at the moment, and Wednesday they flew into Los Angeles and dropped by Walt Disney Concert Hall in the evening to play around a little. Make that to play -- a lot. They are Emanuel Ax and Yefim Bronfman, two of the world's finest pianists...

The good nature of the pianists, along with some friendly competitiveness, was not hard to miss at their Disney duo recital. But then, by now they are our friends as well. Ax has been a regular at the Music Center since 1975; Bronfman's career got a major boost from Zubin Mehta and the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the '80s. Ax was recently a Philharmonic "On Location" resident artist. Bronfman is currently one: He opened the orchestra's season with an unforgettable performance of Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto and is just back from touring in Asia with the Philharmonic and Esa-Pekka Salonen.

Bronfman is known as the more brilliant player, whereas Ax is seen as more poetic. But these distinctions operate on a continuum. Bronfman, who can play fistfuls of notes at high speed like nobody's business, has his delicate side. Although he doesn't normally make a big deal of it, Ax has a monster technique.

In virtuoso showpieces Wednesday, Ax, undoubtedly in response to Bronfman, put on a percussive performance. Bronfman dazzled as he always does, but he also revealed that he could play with expressive eloquence. Neither pianist was about to be outdone by the other, but what made the partnership so remarkable was that Ax and Bronfman each did this in such a way as to support and enhance what the other guy was doing.

The program was mostly standard, with Ax and Bronfman alternating pianos (and first and second piano parts). The recital began with Brahms' "Variations on a Theme by Haydn," each variation enhanced by Bronfman's sparkle and Ax's beautiful sense of texturing chords.

The novelty was William Bolcom's "Recuerdos," three irresistible Latin American dances by an American composer who never met a style he couldn't absorb. Fun is permitted. Although the pianists appeared to be working extra hard (the music was new to them), they also proved to be Eastern Europeans who know the allure of South American dance and a little something about how to be cutups.

Mozart's Sonata in D, K. 448, is not meant to be delicate all the time but when it was, especially in the heavenly slow movement, burly hands became digits dancing on clouds. Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances, a piece Ax and Bronfman have played together often and recorded (as they have the Brahms), was magnificent. Bronfman is far more closely associated with Rachmaninoff than Ax, but they shared a sense of soul as well as flair.

The two men have not slimmed down quite enough to comfortably squeeze together for four-hand piano music. Still, they managed for the encore, a Dvorák Slavonic Dance. There was clowning; Bronfman, seated on the outside, made Jack Benny-like glances of exasperation to the audience. The performance, with all its slowing down and speeding up, was brilliant and a joy.

The audience wanted more. But my guess is that Patina and a gathering of friends were now on their.

By Gary Budzak

Ax what you can do for your country