SEVEN-TIME GRAMMY WINNER EMANUEL AX TO PLAY

Tri-College students, faculty and staff will have a rare opportunity to see one of the world's premier pianists in an intimate setting when seven-time Grammy winner Emanuel Ax performs at Bryn Mawr's Thomas Great Hall at 7 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 28. Sponsored by the Roberta Holder Gellert Fund, the concert is free and open to all members of the Tri-Co community.

Ax, who was born in Poland and immigrated to the United States in 1961, rocketed to fame in 1974 when, at the age of 25, he won the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition in Tel Aviv. In 1975 he won the Michaels Award of Young Concert Artists, and four years later, he cemented his reputation for virtuosity with the prestigious Avery Fisher Prize in New York.

Ax is renowned not only for his poetic temperament and unsurpassed mastery of the instrument, 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. He is celebrated for his regular collaborations with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and the late Isaac Stern, the legendary violinist.

Ax will return to Bryn Mawr College on March 14, 2006, when he will play part of a Brahms trio with W. Alton Jones Professor of Chemistry Frank Mallory and Rachel C. Hale Professor of the Sciences and Mathematics Paul Melvin, both committed amateur musicians who play regularly with the Bryn Mawr Chamber Music Society. The three will then lead a discussion with students about maintaining creativity and vigor in performance, making career choices when one has multiple interests and talents, and nurturing talents through avocations.

A chance encounter with Associate Provost Suzanne Spain led to Ax's appointment as the Gellert lecturer.

"I heard Emanuel Ax speak engagingly at a Mostly Mozart concert in Philadelphia in summer 2003 and I thought perhaps he has a lot of things he might want to say about music and doesn't get the opportunity," Spain says, "andI wondered if and how we might get him to come to the College and speak on one of our endowed lecture series. I didn't know how to reach him and sort of forgot about it. Then, a few months later, I was visiting my sister in the Berkshires and we went to a craft show in Great Barrington, and there he was. I paused for about 30 seconds and decided to approach him. I introduced myself and said that if I were intruding on him, I'd go away, but I had a question to ask him on behalf of Bryn Mawr College. He could not have been more gracious then and since as we have worked out the details of his Gellert Lectureship visit.

"While this was going on, a friend of my sister snapped a picture, which I thought was intrusive, but I have it."

Through an e-mail correspondence, Spain and Ax developed ideas for his workshop with faculty and students, and Ax offered to give a performance as well.

For his concert at Bryn Mawr, the College will rent the same Steinway concert grand piano Ax plays when he performs with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Among the works he will perform are two new pieces that Ax recently commissioned from composers Chen Yi and Kaija Saariaho. The program:

Chen Yi: Ji-Dong-Nuo (2005)
Brahms: Four Ballades, Op. 10
Kaija Saariaho: Ballade (2005)
Liszt: Ballade No. 2, B minor
Intermission
Chopin: The Four Ballades

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