Emanuel Ax first captured public attention in 1974 when, at 25, he won the 1st Artur Rubinstein International Piano Competition in Tel Aviv. In 1975 he won the Michaels Award of Young Concert Artists and, four years later, took the coveted Avery Fisher Prize. Born in Poland, Ax moved to Canada with his family when he was a young boy. He studied at the Juilliard School, and subsequently won the Young Concert Artists Award. He currently lives in New York City with his wife and two children.
Joining the Singapore Symphony Orchestra for other exciting concerts are international guest artists such as Korean soprano Sumi Jo (October 17), pianists Yefim Bronfman (August 23), Vladimir Feltsman (October 4) and Marc-Andre Hamelin (November 29) and violinist Augustin Dumay (September 5).
And in celebration of Singapore Symphony Orchestra's 30th anniversary next year, Lan Shui will conduct the orchestra's first-ever complete Beethoven symphony cycle, starting in January 2009. The Sixth to Ninth Symphonies will be performed in the second half of 2009. Japanese-American conductor Kent Nagano will also conduct the concert version of Richard Strauss' opera Elektra on January 8. There will also be a series of concerts commemorating Leonard Bernstein's 90th Birthday in 2008 as well as a Shostakovich series throughout the season. -- www.sso.org.sg
