|
|
| NEW BLOG ADDRESS - Sunday, December 27, 2009 |
| NOVEMBER 2nd 2009, 730PM! "BACH TRANSCRIBED" CD RELEASE EVENT @ (le) poisson rouge in NYC - Monday, October 12, 2009CD RELEASE PARTY IN NEW YORK CITY
Really excited about this! My new CD "Bach Transcribed" will finally be out in the US. There will be a concert/party on NOVEMBER 2nd, at 730PM at the wonderful new venue "(le) poisson rouge", 158 Bleecker Street, in New York City. You are all invited. It's going to be a relaxed and fun mixed program featuring selections from the disc as well as guest jazz pianist Dan Tepfer with his take on the Goldberg Variations! See you all on November 2nd! Meanwhile you can find the cd on iTUNES, amazon.com and all other on-line music stores, directly at signumrecords.com, at (le) poisson rouge on November 2nd and if you are lucky even in one of the few record stores left in this world...
Hope to see you all on November 2nd!
Alessio
Here it is:
CD Release Event: Bach Transcribed. Alessio Bax and guest Dan Tepfer
Alessio's "Bach Transcribed" CD will soon be out in the US.
Named "CD of the Week" by Classical FM in the UK, it features works by Bach re-invented by Busoni, Godowski, Saint-Saens, Kempff, Siloti, Petri and Bax himself...
Bach's music stands the test of time and shows its versatility in ways that can challenge the artistic imagination to the limit.
Alessio will present the CD and play a handful of selections from the disc, including Busoni's glorious piano transcription of the Chaconne for solo violin, as well as Bach's own take on an Italian oboe concerto by Marcello.
*Special Guest* appearance by amazing Jazz-pianist/composer Dan Tepfer who will present excerpts from his "Goldberg Variations Project" in which he will play selection of variations from J.S. Bach's seminal work and add to it his own commentary, in the form of improvisations on each variation.
Tickets are $15
go to http://lepoissonrouge.com/events/view/603 for more info
read more ... |
| 2009 Avery Fisher Career Grant Recipient - Friday, April 24, 20092009 Avery Fisher Career Grant Winner!
It is our great pleasure to announce that pianist Alessio Bax has been awarded the Avery Fisher Career Grant for 2009. These grants give professional assistance and recognition to talented instrumentalists who the Recommendation Board and Executive Committee believe have great potential for solo careers. Past winners include Joshua Bell, Hilary Hahn, and Gil Shaham. The announcement was made yesterday, April 23, and was accompanied by a performance which will be broadcast on WQXR on May 4 at 8:00 PM.
|
| Alessio on Clavier Companion - Wednesday, March 25, 2009Alessio is the featured cover artist for Clavier Companion.
Read about it on the next issue of Clavier Companion or go to www.claviercompanion.com and listen the the complete interview!
read more ... |
| Alessio's Recital on the Dallas Morning News "TOP 10 list" of Best Classical Music Events for 2008 - Monday, February 09, 2009Alessio's Dallas Recital on March 2 made it to #5 on Scott Cantrell's TOP 10 list for 2008!
....."in an amazing Caruth Auditorium recital he played to all the music's extremes; in the best sense, the music sounded made up on the spot. "....
Also,at #10 was the Mimir International Chamber Music Festival in Fort Worth, which included performances by Alessio during the summer.
|
| PHOTO BLOG - Wednesday, October 01, 2008 |
| Latest News!! - Thursday, June 19, 2008June 18, 2008
Bax Joins Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's CMS Two
Alessio Bax has been selected to participate in CMS Two beginning in the 2009-10 season.
THE CHAMBER MUSIC SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER
DAVID FINCKEL AND WU HAN, ARTISTIC DIRECTORS
ANNOUNCE
APPOINTMENT OF 14 MUSICIANS TO
CMS TWO RESIDENCY PROGRAM
FOR OUTSTANDING YOUNG ARTISTS
AUDITION WINNERS TO JOIN CMS INTERGENERATIONAL
ARTIST ROSTER IN 2009-10 SEASON
The Chamber Music Society is pleased to announce the appointment of fourteen outstanding young musicians to its prestigious CMS Two program. Chosen from a record-setting field of 240 applicants from thirteen countries, each one is an award-winning performer with exceptional musical training and a passionate interest in chamber repertoire. This extraordinary appointment affords these young musicians three full seasons of participation in every facet of CMS activity: performances on all stages during the New York concert season; international and national tour appearances; recordings on both the in-house CMS Studio label, and Deutsche Grammophon’s digital concert series; and numerous educational outreach opportunities. The depth of this involvement reflects the commitment of CMS, under the leadership of artistic directors, David Finckel and Wu Han, to fostering an intergenerational roster of talent.
The new CMS Two members will begin their formal three-year residency in the 2009-10 season. They are flutist Sooyun Kim; violinists Bella Hristova, Jinyeong Jessica Lee, Jung-Min Amy Lee, and Kristin Lee; violinist/violist Yura Lee; violist Mark Holloway; cellists Nicolas Altstaedt, Andreas Brantelid, Nicholas Canellakis, and Jakob Koranyi; pianists Alessio Bax and Juho Pohjonen; and harpist Bridget Kibbey. [Please see brief biographies below.]
David Finckel and Wu Han commented on the appointments:
After an extensive audition process, during which we heard an unprecedented number of stellar candidates, we have selected the group of exceptional individual artists who will be joining us beginning in the 2009-10 season. We look forward to presenting these important musicians in every aspect of CMS activity, and to enjoying the enthusiasm and artistry they will contribute to the musical fabric of CMS.
In addition to CMS Artistic Directors David Finckel and Wu Han, the distinguished panel of judges included Norma Hurlburt, CMS Executive Director; Jeremy Geffen, Director of Artistic Planning, Carnegie Hall; Ara Guzelimian, Dean, The Juilliard School; Scott Nickrenz, Music Director, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum; Sharon Robinson, cellist, Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio; Da-Hong Seetoo, violinist and recording producer; and CMS Artists clarinetist David Shifrin, violinist Ani Kavafian, and violist Paul Neubauer. read more ... |
| DALLAS MORNING NEWS REVIEW!!! - Monday, March 24, 2008 Dallas Morning News, Scott Cantrell, March 2, 2008
Every so often, a concert takes us away from a world of political campaigns, rising gas prices and sinking 401(k)s and into realms of magic. Such was the case with pianist Alessio Bax's recital Saturday evening at Southern Methodist University's Caruth Auditorium. Now on the faculty of SMU's Meadows School of the Arts, Mr. Bax was presented in the school's Distinguished Artist Recital Series.
In 2000, the Italian-born pianist, who did graduate study at SMU with Joaquín Achúcarro, won one of the most prestigious international piano competitions, the Leeds. And when I first heard him, he sounded like a competition winner: technically skilled and tasteful, but without a distinctive stamp.
Each time since then he has evinced more personality. This time represented a quantum leap, with playing that went all-out for expressive intensity.
Clean-cut good behavior has become too much the defining virtue of modern music-making. Mr. Bax's performances, by contrast, risked everything. In virtuoso passages of the Beethoven Appassionata Sonata and the first book of Brahms' Paganini Variations he pushed power and speed to the very edge – as both those pianist-composers reportedly did in their performing heydays.
As with old pianists captured in early 20th-century recordings, Mr. Bax went for the big gestures, bending the little notes to larger purposes. But quiet openings of the Beethoven and the Brahms Op. 10 Ballades, and two gentle Bach transcriptions by Alexander Siloti, seemed to come out of some dreamy nowhere. Never have the ballades sounded so wondrous strange, their harmonic progressions so exquisitely unpredictable.
Great music-making has the illusion of spontaneity – and a quality of ecstasy. Start to finish, Mr. Bax sounded as if improvising the music on the spot. He went wherever its spirit, now tempestuous, now sublime, took him. If clarity was occasionally sacrificed to earthquake, wind and fire, so be it. But introspective music became an out-of-body experience.
[…] go-for-broke, blood-stirring playing like this was an experience to treasure. And no one could play the Kreisler-Rachmaninoff Liebesleid, the first encore, with more delicious charm.
|
 | RUSSIAN JOURNAL - Saturday, December 22, 2007HELLO TO ALL!
I HAVE WRITTEN A LONG JOURNAL ABOUT MY RUSSIAN TOUR LAST NOVEMBER. THE TOUR LASTED ALMOST A MONTH AND TOOK ME FROM EASTERN SIBERIA ALL THE WAY TO MOSCOW...
IF YOU'D LIKE TO READ IT, JUST SEND ME A MESSAGE, AS IT IS A BIT TOO PERSONAL TO POST ON-LINE
Meanwhile, to see some pictures click down here...
HAPPY HOLIDAYS
ALESSIO read more ... |
 | 2007 Alessio and Lucille Photoshoot - Saturday, December 22, 2007See here the latest Alessio and Lucille Photoshoot. By Lise-Marie Mazzucco read more ... |
| 2007 GDYO China Tour - Friday, June 22, 2007This NEW link is for GDYO people. 2007 GDYO Tour of China. ...Alessio
Click on "read more" for the link: read more ... |
| Verbier Picutres - Monday, August 14, 2006 - Saturday, September 16, 2006Click on "read more" to see some pictures from the 2006 Verbier Festival and Academy! read more ... |
|
Written by:
alessiobax
Wednesday, June 13, 2007 9:44 AM
LONDON PIANO DUO REVIEW!!!!
Wondrous Colours
Alessio Bax and Lucille Chung play
Schubert, Ravel and Stravinsky,
reviewed by BILL NEWMAN
Shortly after he won the Leeds Piano Competition in 2000 I heard Alessio Bax perform Brahms Piano Concerto No 1 in D minor with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under Petr Altrichter. I was impressed both by his quiet authority and tonal strengths in a work that demands sadness and respect without too much panache and outgoing virtuosity. To my regret, I lost touch with his concert going and recordings in a world chock full of talents and brilliant achievement, hoping to renew acquaintance with his all too obvious gifts that made me sit up and listen afresh. His Korean partner Lucille Chung, born in Montreal, resembles -- in her playing -- something akin to a ball of fire with arms and hands rising in perfect proportions from the keyboard, perfectly geared to provide the required expressive touch and brilliance which music demands with no problems whatever. Theirs is a marriage of wondrous colours and dextrous aplomb, subtly balanced to make the musical performance sound as one.Schubert's late masterwork for piano four hands is his Fantasie in F minor D940, in particular for its poignant qualities sustained over a four movement, continuous whole. Until the advent of Anton Bruckner and his nine symphonies I used to think that Bach and Brahms were his two main rivals in this respect, but Schubert imposes on performers an extra commitment of understanding exactly how to phrase his melodic spans -- starting often as an understatement of holding back before quickening the motion, then turning the upward thrust of the tune with loving grace allowing the tempo to right itself as it descends for its completion. I asked the famous duo Isabel Beyer and Harvey Dagul about this and their answer was typical, based on 'her' following 'him' over many glorious performing years: 'We feel it should be exactly that way', and Alessio and Lucille likewise. Despite some accentuation in the treble range during the height of the development -- to counter the hall reverberation, this was every way as worthy as Tal and Groethuysen who have performed and recorded everything that Schubert wrote for this combination.
Apart from Sophie Prett's delightful interview with the artists at the start, Alessio gave the audience pointers to listen out for in Stravinsky's complete Petrushka ballet score, emphasizing in particular the descriptions of characters and colourings in the programme notes. In this, the players reversed their positions: Lucille in the treble range, Alessio, bass to middle. The quality and clarity of notation suited the composer's score admirably. The pace chosen resembled Dorati's Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra Mercury recording, which approximates Stravinsky's original metronome markings (1914 version). It gives emphases to the character sequences and accented rhythmic colourings during the many dramatic sforzandi in the course of descriptive writing and key changes. The 'Shrovetide Fair' sprung into life in full glory, while 'Petrushka's Cell' and The Moor's Quarters sent shivers down the spine. Finally, the Fair's reprise with its several offshoots leading to 'Petrushka's Death' became as declamatory as watching the whole ballet. I cannot imagine a finer performance [17 March 2007, John Keble Church, Edgware, London UK, given as part of the Hendon Music Society's 2006/7 International Concert Series] -- the first in living memory of the whole score, live for four hands on one piano. The lousy truncated Suite that Stravinsky wrote for various virtuosi to perform can now be suitably ignored!
7 May 2007 Bill Newman, Edgware UK
Tags:
Written by:
alessiobax
Wednesday, June 13, 2007 9:44 AM
LONDON PIANO DUO REVIEW!!!!
Wondrous Colours
Alessio Bax and Lucille Chung play
Schubert, Ravel and Stravinsky,
reviewed by BILL NEWMAN
Shortly after he won the Leeds Piano Competition in 2000 I heard Alessio Bax perform Brahms Piano Concerto No 1 in D minor with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under Petr Altrichter. I was impressed both by his quiet authority and tonal strengths in a work that demands sadness and respect without too much panache and outgoing virtuosity. To my regret, I lost touch with his concert going and recordings in a world chock full of talents and brilliant achievement, hoping to renew acquaintance with his all too obvious gifts that made me sit up and listen afresh. His Korean partner Lucille Chung, born in Montreal, resembles -- in her playing -- something akin to a ball of fire with arms and hands rising in perfect proportions from the keyboard, perfectly geared to provide the required expressive touch and brilliance which music demands with no problems whatever. Theirs is a marriage of wondrous colours and dextrous aplomb, subtly balanced to make the musical performance sound as one.Schubert's late masterwork for piano four hands is his Fantasie in F minor D940, in particular for its poignant qualities sustained over a four movement, continuous whole. Until the advent of Anton Bruckner and his nine symphonies I used to think that Bach and Brahms were his two main rivals in this respect, but Schubert imposes on performers an extra commitment of understanding exactly how to phrase his melodic spans -- starting often as an understatement of holding back before quickening the motion, then turning the upward thrust of the tune with loving grace allowing the tempo to right itself as it descends for its completion. I asked the famous duo Isabel Beyer and Harvey Dagul about this and their answer was typical, based on 'her' following 'him' over many glorious performing years: 'We feel it should be exactly that way', and Alessio and Lucille likewise. Despite some accentuation in the treble range during the height of the development -- to counter the hall reverberation, this was every way as worthy as Tal and Groethuysen who have performed and recorded everything that Schubert wrote for this combination.
Apart from Sophie Prett's delightful interview with the artists at the start, Alessio gave the audience pointers to listen out for in Stravinsky's complete Petrushka ballet score, emphasizing in particular the descriptions of characters and colourings in the programme notes. In this, the players reversed their positions: Lucille in the treble range, Alessio, bass to middle. The quality and clarity of notation suited the composer's score admirably. The pace chosen resembled Dorati's Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra Mercury recording, which approximates Stravinsky's original metronome markings (1914 version). It gives emphases to the character sequences and accented rhythmic colourings during the many dramatic sforzandi in the course of descriptive writing and key changes. The 'Shrovetide Fair' sprung into life in full glory, while 'Petrushka's Cell' and The Moor's Quarters sent shivers down the spine. Finally, the Fair's reprise with its several offshoots leading to 'Petrushka's Death' became as declamatory as watching the whole ballet. I cannot imagine a finer performance [17 March 2007, John Keble Church, Edgware, London UK, given as part of the Hendon Music Society's 2006/7 International Concert Series] -- the first in living memory of the whole score, live for four hands on one piano. The lousy truncated Suite that Stravinsky wrote for various virtuosi to perform can now be suitably ignored!
7 May 2007 Bill Newman, Edgware UK
Tags:
Next Concerts and Programs
| Next Concert Dates - Thursday, February 15, 2007 |
|
|
|