SEPF Guest Artist Alessio Bax

Alessio Bax

Pianist Alessio Bax is praised for creating “a ravishing listening experience” with his lyrical playing, insightful interpretations and dazzling facility. First prize winner at the Leeds and Hamamatsu international piano competitions and a 2009 Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient, he has appeared as soloist with over 90 orchestras, including the London and Royal Philharmonic orchestras, Dallas and Houston symphonies, the NHK Symphony in Japan and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra with Sir Simon Rattle.

Highlights of Bax’s 2011-12 season include appearances with the Dallas Symphony under Jaap van Zweden, St. Petersburg Philharmonic with Yuri Temirkanov, orchestras in London, Bilbao, Castilla y León, and Seoul, performances at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., New York’s 92nd Street Y, and with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center where he is a member of CMS Two.

Among the esteemed conductors with whom Bax has worked are Marin Alsop, Sergiu Commissiona, Alexander Dimitriev, Vernon Handley, Jacques Lacombe, Jonathan Nott, Vasily Petrenko, Carlos Miguel Prieto, Dimitry Sitkovetsky and Christopher Warren-Greene. Festival appearances have included London's International Piano Series (Queen Elizabeth Hall), Verbier in Switzerland, England’s Aldeburgh and Bath festivals, and the Ruhr Klavierfestival, BeethovenFest and Schloss Elmau in Germany. He has performed recitals at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and music halls in Rome, Milan, Madrid, Mexico City, Paris, London, Tel Aviv, Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, and Washington, DC.

Bax’s new solo recording, Rachmaninov: Preludes and Melodies (Signum Classics), was selected as a “Critics’ Choice 2011” by American Record Guide. The album joins an acclaimed discography that includes Bach Transcribed and Baroque Reflections (Warner Classics, Gramophone “Editor’s Choice). He performed Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” Sonata for maestro Daniel Barenboim in the PBS-TV documentary Barenboim on Beethoven: Masterclass, available as a DVD box set on the EMI label.

At age 14, Bax graduated with top honors from the conservatory of his hometown, Bari, Italy, and after further studies in Europe moved to the United States in 1994. A Steinway artist, he resides in New York City with his wife, pianist Lucille Chung.

More information:

• AlessioBax.com