Alessio Bax
Pianist Alessio Bax is praised for creating “a ravishing listening experience” with his lyrical playing, insightful interpretations and dazzling facility. “His playing quivers with an almost hypnotic intensity” says Gramophone magazine, leading to “an out-of-body experience” (Dallas Morning News). Since taking first prizes at the Leeds International Pianoforte Competition and the Hamamatsu International Piano Competition in Japan, Bax has won audiences across the globe. In 2009 he was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant, one of the most prestigious prizes in classical music.

Highlights of Bax’s 2010/11 season included appearances as soloist with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in the UK and the Colorado Symphony under Marin Alsop, solo recitals at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Harriman-Jewell series in Kansas City, and the second year of his residency with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center as a member of CMS Two. Bax performed a noteworthy “Carte Blanche” recital at Music@ Menlo in California between engagements at Schloss Elmau in Germany, a Japan tour, chamber music in Fort Worth, Lexington, and at the Bard Music Festival, and recitals and orchestral dates in Spain.

Alessio Bax’s extensive concerto repertoire has led to appearances with over 80 orchestras, including the London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, Royal Scottish National, Dallas Symphony, Houston Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, Rome Symphony, Spanish Radio and Television Orchestra, and the NHK Symphony Orchestra. He has worked with a number of esteemed conductors such as Marin Alsop, Alexander Dimitriev, Vernon Handley, Jonathan Nott, Vasily Petrenko, Dimitry Sitkovetsky and Sir Simon Rattle.

Bax’s festival appearances include London’s International Piano Series (Queen Elizabeth Hall), the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, England’s Aldeburgh and Bath festivals, and the Ruhr Klavierfestival and BeethovenFest in Germany. He has performed in recital at music halls in Rome, Milan, Madrid, Paris, London, Tel Aviv, Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, New York, and Washington DC. His fall recital in Mexico City was cited as a “Best Performance of 2009” by L’Orfeo: Música Clásica Hoy. Also an active chamber musician, he has collaborated with Emanuel Ax, Joshua Bell, Andrés Diaz, Pamela Frank, and Steven Isserlis, among others.

Bax’s 2009 CD, Bach Transcribed, received rave reviews from Gramophone magazine (“awesome”) and Fanfare (“this disc is a must”). Baroque Reflections, his 2004 recording for Warner Classics, was selected as a Gramophone “Editor’s Choice” and American Record Guide “Critics’ Choice” (“a disc to treasure”). In 2005, Bax and pianist Lucille Chung recorded Saint-Saëns’s Carnival of the Animals with conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya and the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra. They have also recorded the complete works for two pianos and piano four hands of György Ligeti on Dynamic Records. In addition, Bax has chronicled the complete works for piano and organ of Marcel Dupré for Naxos, and Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1, live with the New Japan Philharmonic, for Fontec. Also on Fontec, Bax released a live recording of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Hamamatsu Symphony Orchestra.

In 2005, Alessio Bax was selected to play the Fugue of Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” Sonata for Maestro Daniel Barenboim in Barenboim on Beethoven. The documentary was produced by Channel 13/PBS, in conjunction with Bel Air Media, BBC, and NHK Japan. It was broadcast worldwide and released as a DVD box set in 2006 on the EMI label. His performances are often broadcast live on the BBC, CBC (Canada), RAI (Italy), RTVE (Spain), NHK (Japan), WDR, NDR and Bayerische Rundfunk (Germany), Hungarian Radio Television, Serbian RTE, among others.

Alessio Bax graduated with top honors at the record age of 14 from the conservatory of his hometown in Bari, Italy. He studied in France with François-Joël Thiollier, and attended the Chigiana Academy in Siena under Joaquín Achúcarro. He moved to Dallas in 1994 to continue his studies with Achúcarro at SMU’s Meadows School of the Arts. He is now on the teaching faculty there. He and his wife, pianist Lucille Chung, reside in New York City.

www.alessiobax.com