Emanuel Ax

Last updated
Emanuel Ax
Rotterdam- Yannick Nezet-Seguin24 (14874140070).jpg
Ax in 2014
Born (1949-06-08) June 8, 1949 (age 74)
NationalityAmerican
Musical career
OriginNew York City, U.S.
Occupation(s)Musician
Instrument(s)Piano
Years active1973—present

Emanuel "Manny" [1] Ax (born 8 June 1949) is a Grammy-winning American classical pianist. He is known for his chamber music collaborations with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and violinists Isaac Stern and Young Uck Kim, as well as his piano recitals and performances with major orchestras in the world.

Contents

Since the age of 12, Ax studied piano under Mieczysław Munz of the Juilliard School. He won honorable mention at the VIII International Chopin Piano Competition in 1970, third place at the Vianna da Motta International Music Competition in 1971, seventh place at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 1972, and rose to after winning the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in 1974.

Ax has been a faculty member at the Juilliard School since 1990. [2] [3]

Early life

Ax was born to a Polish-Jewish family to Joachim and Hellen Ax [4] in Lviv, Ukraine, formerly part of the Soviet Union. Both parents were Nazi concentration camp survivors. Ax began to study piano at the age of six; his father was his first piano teacher. When he was seven, the family moved to Warsaw, Poland, where he studied piano the at Miodowa school. Two years later, Ax's family moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, where he continued to study music, including as a member of The Junior Musical Club of Winnipeg. In 1961, when Ax was 12 years old, the family moved to New York City, and Ax continued his piano studies under Mieczysław Munz of the Juilliard School until 1976, when Munz left New York to teach in Japan. In 1970, Ax received his B.A. in French at Columbia University and became an American citizen. The same year, he won honorable mention at the VIII International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw. In 1971, he won third place at the Vianna da Motta International Music Competition. [5] In 1972, he placed 7th at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels. He caught the public eye when he won the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in 1974, where he was personally congratulated by renowned pianist Arthur Rubinstein, who was a judge for the competition. The New York Times reported on Ax's win in 1974 and said that in addition to a prize of $5,000, Ax "will receive the Artur Rubenstein Gold Medal engagements with the Israel Philharmonic and the BBC Orchestra, a recording contract with RCA and an artist‐management contract with Hurok Artists." [5]

In 1975, Ax was named recipient of the Michaels Award of Young Concert Artists, and in 1979, he was named recipient of the Avery Fisher Prize. [6] [7]

Views

Recalling his competition years, Ax said "You tend to forget how really awful the tension was. Here you were, No. 19, trying to play something better than No. 18. Ridiculous." For Ax, saying which pianist is better is only a subjective judgement at the highest levels, "can anyone really go to piano recital and say Horowitz is better than Rubinstein? The most I can say is that Rubinstein speaks to me with greater voice than this one or that one." Though he admits that competitions are a necessary means toward success for pianists, Ax hopes to never "sit on a jury and eliminate people". [6]

When speaking about performance reportoire, Ax said that one should not perform at a conert with pieces they have only learned recently: "People think pianists are lazy because they play the same works again and again, but it's not that. It's being afraid of something you haven't done in public before. A conductor can do what he does very well whether his hands are cold or his baton is trembling. He can still get what he wants. But if I'm afraid, things will suffer. Physical and mental coordination must be perfect." [6]

Performing career

Ax has been the main duo recital partner of cellist Yo-Yo Ma since August 3, 1973 when the pair performed its first public recital at the Marlboro Music School and Festival. They have recorded much of the cello/piano repertoire together. Ax also played quartets briefly with Ma and violinists Isaac Stern and Jaime Laredo. Before the quartet disbanded in 2001 due to the death of Stern, they recorded works for Sony by Brahms, Fauré, Beethoven, Schumann and Mozart. Ax is also a featured guest artist in a documentary film about the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Peter Oundjian, Five Days in September; the Rebirth of an Orchestra.

In 1997, Ax was the music director of the Ojai Music Festival alongside the conductor Daniel Harding.

He holds honorary doctorates of music from Yale University [8] (awarded in May 2007), [9] Skidmore College, New England Conservatory of Music, and Columbia University. [8] He is a recipient of Yale University's Sanford Medal. [10] [11]

In 2012, Ax was inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame. [7]

Musical style

Ax is a particular supporter of contemporary composers and has given three world premieres in the last few seasons; Century Rolls by John Adams, Seeing by Christopher Rouse and Red Silk Dance by Bright Sheng. He also performs works by such diverse figures as Michael Tippett, Hans Werner Henze, Joseph Schwantner, Arnold Schoenberg and Paul Hindemith, as well as more traditional composers such as Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Chopin.

Personal life

Ax lives in New York City with his wife, pianist Yoko Nozaki, [12] and has two children. [13] He converses in fluent Polish with his family at home. [14]

Ax co-constructed the April 19, 2017 New York Times Crossword Puzzle and is one of the ambassadors to Music Traveler, together with Billy Joel, Hans Zimmer, John Malkovich, Sean Lennon, and Adrien Brody.

Discography

Partial Discography

1981:

1984:

1985:

1986:

1988:

1989:

1990:

1991:

1992:

1993:

1994:

1995:

1996:

1997:

1999:

2010:

Awards and recognitions

Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance : [20]

Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without orchestra) : [20]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Isaac Stern</span> American violinist (1920–2001)

Isaac Stern was an American violinist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Itzhak Perlman</span> Israeli-American violinist (born 1945)

Itzhak Perlman is an Israeli-American violinist. He has performed worldwide and throughout the United States, in venues that have included a state dinner for Elizabeth II at the White House in 2007, and at the 2009 inauguration of Barack Obama. He has conducted the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Westchester Philharmonic. In 2015, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Perlman has won 16 Grammy Awards, including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and four Emmy Awards.

A piano trio is a group of piano and two other instruments, usually a violin and a cello, or a piece of music written for such a group. It is one of the most common forms found in classical chamber music. The term can also refer to a group of musicians who regularly play this repertoire together; for a number of well-known piano trios, see below.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murray Perahia</span> American pianist and conductor

Murray David Perahia is an American pianist and conductor. He is widely considered one of the greatest living pianists. He was the first North American pianist to win the Leeds International Piano Competition, in 1972. Known as a leading interpreter of Bach, Handel, Scarlatti, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schumann, among other composers, Perahia has won numerous awards, including three Grammy Awards from a total of 18 nominations, and 9 Gramophone Awards in addition to its first and only "Piano Award".

Pamela Frank is an American violinist, with an active international career across a varied range of performing activity. Her musicianship was recognized in 1999 with the Avery Fisher Prize, one of the highest honors given to American instrumentalists. In addition to her career as a performer, Frank holds the Herbert R. and Evelyn Axelrod Chair in Violin Studies at the Curtis Institute of Music, where she has taught since 1996, and is also an Adjunct Professor of Violin at the University of Southern California's Thornton School of Music since 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ruth Laredo</span> American classical pianist (1937–2005)

Ruth Laredo was an American classical pianist.

Joel Krosnick is an American cellist who has performed as a soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician throughout the world for over 40 years. As a member of the Juilliard String Quartet from 1974 to 2016, he performed the great quartet literature throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jaime Laredo</span>

Jaime Laredo is a violinist and conductor. He was the conductor and Music Director of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, and he began his musical career when he was five years old.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rudolf Firkušný</span> Moravian-American pianist (1912–1994)

Rudolf Firkušný was a Moravian-born, Moravian-American classical pianist.

Discography for the cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

Yeol Eum Son is a world renowned South Korean classical pianist. She is particularly esteemed as an interpreter of the Classical era of composers, especially Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, as well as such later composers as Mendelssohn, Schumann, Liszt, Rachmaninoff and Ravel. Son regularly performs as soloist with prominent orchestras and eminent conductors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Tree</span> Musical artist

Michael Tree, born Michael Applebaum, was an American violist.

Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi is a world renowned Japanese cellist. In an international career which began in 1954, he has performed as soloist with prominent orchestras and conductors in many countries and given recitals and chamber music performances with distinguished collaborators. His solo performances have extended for a period of seventy years and still continue. Tsutsumi has performed and recorded all of the principal standard works in the cello repertoire, both solo and concerto.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dezső Ránki</span> Hungarian virtuoso concert pianist (born 1951)

Dezső Ránki is a Hungarian virtuoso concert pianist with a broad repertoire and a significant discography of solo, duo and concerto works.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Piano Quartet No. 1 (Brahms)</span>

The Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor, Op. 25, was composed by Johannes Brahms between 1856 and 1861. It was premiered in 1861 in Hamburg, with Clara Schumann at the piano. It was also played in Vienna on 16 November 1862, with Brahms himself at the piano supported by members of the Hellmesberger Quartet. Like most piano quartets, it is scored for piano, violin, viola, and cello.

Leonard Hokanson was an American pianist who achieved prominence in Europe as a soloist and chamber musician.

Vassily Primakov is a Russian concert pianist and recording artist known for his interpretations of Chopin.

Mindru Katz was a Romanian-Israeli classical pianist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Finckel</span> American musician

David Finckel is an American cellist and influential figure in the classical music world. The cellist for the Emerson String Quartet from 1979 to 2013, Finckel is currently the co-artistic director of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York, co-founder of the independent record label ArtistLed, co-artistic director and co-founder of Music@Menlo in Silicon Valley, producer of Cello Talks, professor of cello at The Juilliard School, and visiting professor of music at Stony Brook University.

The Kalichstein–Laredo–Robinson Trio is an American piano trio consisting of violinist Jaime Laredo, cellist Sharon Robinson, and pianist Joseph Kalichstein. The trio is one of the longest-lasting chamber ensembles with all of its original members, having debuted in 1977 at the inauguration of president Jimmy Carter. In 2001 it was named by Musical America as Ensemble of the Year, and in 2011 it was awarded the Samuel Sanders Collaborative Artists Award from The Classical Recording Foundation. In the 2003-2004 season, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts appointed Kalichstein–Laredo–Robinson Ensemble in Residence. The trio is widely regarded as perhaps the most seminal piano trio performing today, and are noted for the high quality of their interpretations of the trio repertoire.

References

  1. Cotter, Jim (16 February 2015). ""Manny" Ax: A Man For All Eras". www.wrti.org. Retrieved 2020-07-13.
  2. "Emanuel Ax". The Juilliard School. Archived from the original on October 18, 2016. Retrieved February 27, 2015.
  3. "Emanuel Ax". The Juilliard School . Retrieved 30 April 2024.
  4. Kaminski, Bartosz (2001-01-08). "Emanuel Ax: nie miałem talentu do gry na fortepianie" [Emanuel Ax: I had no talent for playing the piano]. Gazeta Wyborcza (in Polish). Archived from the original on May 10, 2011.
  5. 1 2 "New Yorker, 25, Is Israel Piano Winner". The New York Times. Sep 14, 1974. Retrieved 23 April 2024.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Henahan, Donal (Aug 14, 1977). "Emanuel Ax Prefers Concerts to Contests". The New York Times . Retrieved 23 April 2024.
  7. 1 2 3 "Ax, Emanuel". Classical Music Walk of Fame. Retrieved 23 April 2024.
  8. 1 2 "Emanuel Ax performs Beethoven, Schoenberg, and Chopin Feb. 6". Yale School of Music. January 24, 2013. Archived from the original on April 1, 2017. Retrieved February 27, 2015. Mr. Ax is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and holds honorary doctorates of music from Yale and Columbia Universities.
  9. "Yale Honorary Degree Recipients". Yale University. Archived from the original on May 21, 2015. Retrieved February 27, 2015.
  10. "Tokyo Quartet, Peter Oundjian receive Sanford Medals". Yale School of Music, Yale University. January 23, 2013. Previous recipients of the Sanford Medal include Georg Solti, Pierre Boulez, Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson, Mstislav Rostropovich, Sherrill Milnes, Marilyn Horne, Emanuel Ax, and Richard Stoltzman.
  11. "Emanuel Ax, pianist". Emanuel Ax. Retrieved 30 April 2024.
  12. Jean-Pierre Thiollet, 88 notes pour piano solo, « Solo de duo », Neva Editions, 2015, p.98. ISBN   978-2-3505-5192-0
  13. Rowes, Barbara (August 9, 1982). "Hailed as the Next Rubinstein, Emanuel Ax Cuts An Ample Figure in the Classical Music World". People . 18 (6).
  14. "Backstage with Peter Oundjian". YouTube. Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Archived from the original on 2021-12-13. Retrieved 1 June 2016.
  15. "Emanuel Ax". queenelisabethcompetition.be (in French). Retrieved 2022-03-25.
  16. 1 2 "Ax, Emanuel". The Juilliard School. Retrieved 21 June 2021.
  17. "A" (PDF). Members of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences: 1780–2010. American Academy of Arts and Sciences. p. 22. Retrieved 28 April 2011.
  18. "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2021-04-23.
  19. "Junges Konzert – 12.12.2019: Mozart". hr-sinfonieorchester.de (in German). 5 December 2019. Retrieved 21 June 2021.
  20. 1 2 "Emanuel Ax". GRAMMY.com. 19 November 2019. Retrieved 21 June 2021.