Ax Plays Beethoven
Ax Plays Beethoven
- Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra
- Heinz Hall
The Program
GUBAIDULINA: Fairytale Poem
BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 3
LUTOSLAWSKI: Concerto for Orchestra
About this Performance
Written in C minor, the key Beethoven reserved for some of his most dramatic works, including his Fifth Symphony, the Third Piano Concerto marks a turning point in the composer's career. Blending Classical elegance with the power and intensity that would define his later music, it is the perfect match for Grammy Award-winning pianist Emanuel Ax, renowned for his expressive interpretations of Beethoven's music. Led by Elim Chan, the first woman to win the Donatella Flick Conducting Competition, the program also features Gubaidulina's Fairy-Tale Poem, a brief, dreamlike work shaped by an imaginative sound world, and Lutoslawski's Concerto for Orchestra, a rhythmically charged and brilliant showcase.
Make a Night (or Afternoon) of It
Come early, stay late, get closer to the music than just your seat. Here's everything happening around the concert on both performance dates:
Friday, May 14
- Meet the Musicians
- Clef Notes (pre-concert talk)
- Concert
Sunday, May 16
- Meet the Musicians
- Clef Notes (pre-concert talk)
- Concert
Featuring
Elim Chan
conductor
“If I have the courage to pursue what I love, then so do you”. – Elim
One of the most sought-after artists of her generation, Elim Chan performs an unusually wide-ranging repertory of symphonic works extending from the Classical period to the present day. The Sunday Times describes Elim Chan as “a rare example of a young conductor at once brilliant and not in the least showing off.” In January 2022, the Boston Classical Review spoke of a “marvel of control and understanding” following Elim Chan’s debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra: “…Chan was the night’s revelation. As a conductor, she’s the embodiment of the principle that less is more. Like Fritz Reiner or Bernard Haitink, she’s not overly demonstrative on the podium. But her beat is clear, gestures economical, and cues precise. Also, she has an exceptionally sensitive ear.“
Elim Chan was principal conductor of the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra from 2019 to 2024 and principal guest conductor of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra from 2018 to 2023.
Having made her highly acclaimed debut with the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the 2023 BBC Proms, Elim Chan conducted the orchestra again at the First Night of the Proms 2024. The summer 2024 also saw Elim Chan reunited with the Los Angeles Philharmonic opening the classical summer season at the Hollywood Bowl, with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra at the Edinburgh International Festival as well as making her debut with the Mozarteumorchester Salzburg opening the Salzburg Festival as well as with the Kammerakademie Potsdam opening the 2024 Beethovenfest Bonn.
Highlights of the 2024-25 season include touring projects with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra as well as with the orchestra’s MCO Academy, Elim Chan’s highly anticipated return to the Hong Kong Philharmonic both in a subscription week as well as for the orchestra’s “Symphony under the Stars” and her debut in Australia with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Other debuts in the season include engagements with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester.
In the 2024-25 season Elim Chan guest conducts the Royal Concertgebouw Orkest, the Oslo Philharmonic and Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Wiener Symphoniker, ORF Radio- Symphonieorchester and the Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin as well as the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the Utah Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, and the San Francisco Symphony.
In spring 2023, the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León announced a three-year collaboration with Elim Chan as Associate Conductor, focusing on Stravinsky’s ballets.
Recent engagements included collaborations with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Philharmonia Orchestra, with the Staatskapelle Berlin and the Staatskapelle Dresden as well as the Orchestre de Paris.
A native of Hong Kong, Elim Chan studied at Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, and at the University of Michigan. In 2014 she was the first female winner of the Donatella Flick Conducting Competition, enabling her to spend the 2015-16 season as assistant conductor at the London Symphony Orchestra, where she worked closely with Valery Gergiev. For the following season Elim Chan joined the Dudamel Fellowship program of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. She also owes much to the support and encouragement of Bernard Haitink, whose masterclasses she attended in Lucerne in 2015.
Emanuel Ax
pianist
Born to Polish parents in what is today Lviv, Ukraine, Emanuel Ax moved to Winnipeg, Canada, with his family when he was a young boy. Mr. Ax made his New York debut in the Young Concert Artists Series, and in 1974 won the first Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition in Tel Aviv. In 1975 he won the Michaels Award of Young Concert Artists, followed four years later by the Avery Fisher Prize.
The 2024/25 season begins with a continuation of the Beethoven For Three touring and recording project with partners Leonidas Kavakos and Yo-Yo Ma which takes them to European festivals including BBC Proms, Dresden, Hamburg, Vienna and Luxembourg. As guest soloist he will appear during the New York Philharmonic’s opening week which will mark his 47th annual visit to the orchestra. During the season he will return to the Cleveland and Philadelphia orchestras, National, San Diego, Nashville and Pittsburgh symphonies and Rochester Philharmonic. A fall recital tour from Toronto and Boston moves west to include San Francisco, Seattle and Los Angeles culminating in the spring in Chicago and his annual Carnegie Hall appearance. A special project in duo with clarinetist Anthony McGill takes them from the west coast through the mid-west to Georgia and Carnegie Hall and in chamber music with Itzhak Perlman and Friends to Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and San Francisco. An extensive European tour will include concerts in Paris, Oslo, Cologne, Hamburg, Berlin, Warsaw and Israel.
Mr. Ax has been a Sony Classical exclusive recording artist since 1987 and following the success of the Brahms Trios with Kavakos and Ma, the trio launched an ambitious, multi-year project to record all the Beethoven Trios and Symphonies arranged for trio of which the first three discs have been released. He has received GRAMMY® Awards for the second and third volumes of his cycle of Haydn’s piano sonatas. He has also made a series of GRAMMY-winning recordings with Yo-Yo Ma of the Beethoven and Brahms sonatas for cello and piano. In the 2004/05 season Mr. Ax contributed to an International EMMY® Award-Winning BBC documentary commemorating the Holocaust that aired on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. In 2013, Mr. Ax’s recording Variations received the Echo Klassik Award for Solo Recording of the Year (19th Century Music/Piano).
Mr. Ax is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and holds honorary doctorates of music from Skidmore College, New England Conservatory of Music, Yale University, and Columbia University.
For more information about Mr. Ax’s career, please visit www.EmanuelAx.com.
Accessibility:
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Sponsored by
Title sponsor:
- Heinz Hall
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600 Penn Avenue
Pittsburgh PA 15222 -
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