FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Maggie Estes, Director of Marketing and Public
Relations
mestes@cliburn.org, 817.738.6536 (o), 817.739.0459 (c)
Fort Worth, Texas, April 17, 2012--Internationally-hailed pianist
Emanuel Ax will take the stage of Bass Performance Hall as part of
the Cliburn Concerts series on Tuesday, May 1, 2012, at 7:30 p.m.
Widely regarded as one of the most distinctive pianists of his
generation, Mr. Ax will captivate audiences with a recital program
of piano variations by Copland, Haydn, Beethoven, and Schumann.
Single tickets for this concert are available from $15-$90 and can
be purchased at Cliburn.org, or by calling 817.212.4280, in person
at the Bass Hall Box Office (525 Commerce Street, Fort Worth,
Texas).
A consummate and thoughtful musician, the Los Angeles Times
said, "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." Mr. Ax is in high demand and has appeared
with most major European and American orchestras. Recently, he made
return visits to the orchestras of Cleveland, Chicago, New York,
Los Angeles, St. Louis, Baltimore, and Toronto. Mr. Ax also
presented numerous recitals, culminating in a series of three at
Lincoln Center focused on the music of Franz Schubert. To mark the
bicentenaries of Chopin and Schumann in 2010 and in partnership
with London's Barbican, Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, Carnegie Hall,
the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the San Francisco Symphony, Mr.
Ax commissioned new works from composers Thomas Adés, Peter
Lieberson, and Stephen Prutsman. These works were later presented
in each of those cities by Mr. Ax and his frequent collaborators
Yo-Yo Ma and Dawn Upshaw.
In addition to this large-scale project, recent tours have
included performances in Asia with the New York Philharmonic on
their first tour with Music Director Alan Gilbert, and European
tours with both the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the Pittsburgh
Symphony.
The recipient of many awards and accolades, Mr. Ax took top
prize at the 1974 Arthur Rubinstein International Piano
Competition. In 1975, he won the Michaels Award of Young Concert
Artists, followed four years later by the coveted Avery Fisher
Prize. Mr. Ax has been an exclusive Sony Classical recording artist
since 1987 and has won seven Grammy® Awards.
Mr. Ax studied at The Juilliard School and Columbia University.
He currently resides in New York City with his wife, pianist Yoko
Nozaki, and their two children. He is a Fellow of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences and holds honorary doctorates of music
from Yale and Columbia Universities.
Mr. Ax's Cliburn Concerts program will include:
Copland, Piano Variations (1930)
Haydn, Andante with Variations in F Minor, Hob. XVII:6
Beethoven, Variations and Fugue in E-flat Major, Op. 35
"Eroica"
Schumann, Études en forme de variations, Op. 13 "Symphonic
Etudes"
ABOUT THE VAN CLIBURN FOUNDATION
The Van Cliburn Foundation disseminates classical music worldwide,
and nurtures and launches young artists' careers through the
quadrennial Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, the
ensuing three-year international concert tours of its medalists,
award-winning documentaries, radio broadcasts, and a live webcast
that extends its outreach to audiences around the world. In 2009,
over 2,857,573 total streams were delivered to viewers from 157
countries/territories.
The Fourteenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition will
take place May 24-June 9, 2013, at Fort Worth's Bass Performance
Hall and will welcome 30 of the world's finest young pianists to
Texas. Continuing its longstanding commitment to new music, the
Cliburn has selected composer Christopher Theofanidis to write the
commissioned work that will be performed by all competitors during
the Semifinal Round. Additionally, the Competition has been
dedicated to showcasing both the extraordinary talent of its
competitors in recital performance as well as their ability to
collaborate with other musicians. The Fourteenth Competition will
mark the first Cliburn appearance by the world-renowned Brentano
String Quartet performing a piano quintet with each of the 12
semifinalists. The Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, which has
appeared at??? every Cliburn Competition, will perform two concerti
with each of the six finalists, under the baton of Maestro Leonard
Slatkin for the first time. Maestro John Giordano will serve as
chairman of the jury for his eleventh Competition since assuming
the post in 1973.
For audiences in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, the Van
Cliburn Foundation promotes great music and world-class artists
through the annual Cliburn Concerts series. It reaches 33,000
elementary school students annually with the education programs of
Musical Awakenings®. In 1999, it established the International
Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs™, which The Boston Globe
proclaimed "a celebration of music, and the people who have to make
music, no matter what." The sixth Amateur Competition was held May
23-29, 2011, at Ed Landreth Auditorium on the campus of TCU.
Visit Cliburn.org to learn more about the Cliburn during its
50th Anniversary year.
Official Sponsors of the Van Cliburn Foundation are:
American Airlines
Amon G. Carter Foundation
Ann L. & Carol Green Rhodes Charitable Trust, Bank of America,
Trustee
Arts Council of Fort Worth & Tarrant County
Crystelle Waggoner Charitable Trust, Bank of America,
Trustee
BNSF Railway Foundation
ExxonMobil
Sid W. Richardson Foundation
The Burnett Foundation
XTO Energy Inc.
Exclusive Print Media Sponsor
Star-Telegram
Official Radio Station
WRR 101.1 FM
