Born in modern day Lvov, Poland, Emanuel Ax moved to Winnipeg, Canada, with his family when he was a young boy. His studies at the Juilliard School were supported by the sponsorship of the Epstein Scholarship Program of the Boys Clubs of America, and he subsequently won the Young Concert Artists Award. Additionally, he attended Columbia University where he majored in French. Mr. Ax made his New York debut in the Young Concert Artists Series, and captured public attention in 1974 when he 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 coveted Avery Fisher Prize.

Always a committed exponent of contemporary composers with works written for him by John Adams, Christopher Rouse, Krzysztof Penderecki, Bright Sheng, and Melinda Wagner already in his repertoire, the 2016/2017 season will feature two newly commissioned works. With the New York Philharmonic conducted by Alan Gilbert, January will bring the world premiere of HK Gruber's Piano Concerto followed in March by the European premiere with the Berlin Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle. In recitals throughout the season his program will include works by Schubert and Chopin partnered with "Impromptus (2015-2016)" by Samuel Adams commissioned by Music Accord and inspired by Schubert. His ongoing relationship with the Boston Symphony will include visits with them to Carnegie Hall, Montreal, and Toronto; with the Cleveland Orchestra Mr. Ax will appear as the featured artist for their Gala opening concert of the season. As a regular visitor he will return to the orchestras of Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Toronto, Seattle, Milwaukee, and Detroit.

A Sony Classical exclusive recording artist since 1987, recent releases include Mendelssohn Trios with Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman, Strauss' Enoch Arden narrated by Patrick Stewart, and discs of two-piano music by Brahms and Rachmaninoff with Yefim Bronfman. In 2015 Deutche Grammophon released a duo recording with Mr. Perlman of Sonatas by Faure and Strauss which the two artists presented on tour during the 2015/2016 season. Mr. Ax 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 cellist Yo-Yo Ma of the Beethoven and Brahms sonatas for cello and piano. His other recordings include the concertos of Liszt and Schoenberg, three solo Brahms albums, an album of tangos by Astor Piazzolla, and the premiere recording of John Adams's Century Rolls with the Cleveland Orchestra for Nonesuch. In the 2004/05 season Mr. Ax also 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).

A frequent and committed partner for chamber music, he has worked regularly with such artists as Young Uck Kim, Cho-Liang Lin, Mr. Ma, Edgar Meyer, Peter Serkin, Jaime Laredo, and the late Isaac Stern.

Mr. Ax resides in New York City with his wife, pianist Yoko Nozaki. They have two children together, Joseph and Sarah. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and holds honorary doctorates of music from Yale and Columbia Universities. For more information about Mr. Ax's career, please visit www.EmanuelAx.com.

Recognized as an artist of passion and integrity, the distinguished American pianist Peter Serkin has successfully conveyed the essence of five centuries of repertoire. His inspired performances with symphony orchestras, in recital appearances, chamber music collaborations and on recordings have been lauded worldwide for decades.     

Peter Serkin's rich musical heritage extends back several generations: his grandfather was violinist and composer Adolf Busch and his father pianist Rudolf Serkin. He has performed with the world's major symphony orchestras with such eminent conductors as Seiji Ozawa, Pierre Boulez, Alexander Schneider, Daniel Barenboim, George Szell, Eugene Ormandy, Claudio Abbado, Simon Rattle, James Levine, Herbert Blomstedt, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos and George Cleve. A dedicated chamber musician, Mr. Serkin has collaborated with Alexander Schneider, Pamela Frank, Yo-Yo Ma, the Budapest, Guarneri, Orion and Shanghai String Quartets and TASHI, of which he was a founding member.  He has recently performed a duo-piano team with Julia Hsu.  They are devoting themselves to both one-piano, four-hands, as well as to two-piano music. 

An avid exponent of the music of many of the 20th and 21st century's most important composers, Mr. Serkin has been instrumental in bringing to life the music of Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Stravinsky, Wolpe, Messiaen, Takemitsu, Henze, Berio, Wuorinen, Goehr, Knussen,  Lieberson and others for audiences around the world. He has performed many important world premieres of works written specifically for him, in particular by Toru Takemitsu, Hans Werner Henze, Luciano Berio, Leon Kirchner, Alexander Goehr, Oliver Knussen, Charles Wuorinen and Peter Lieberson.  Mr. Serkin has recently made several arrangements of four-hand music by Mozart, Schumann and his grandfather, Adolf Busch, for various chamber ensembles and for full orchestra.  He has also arranged all of Brahms's organ Chorale-Preludes, transcribed for one piano, four-hands.        

The 2016 summer season featured engagements at the Ravinia and Music Mountain Chamber Music Festivals, BBC Proms and Bellingham Music Festival performing  concertos, chamber music, and duo piano programs with Julia Hsu. Mr. Serkin traveled to Havana, Cuba with the Bard Conservatory Orchestra in June and rounded out the summer as Artist-in-Residence at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, performing one recital and six collaborative concerts.  

With Julia Hsu, he plays piano four-hands in New York City, Beacon, NY, Mount Kisco, NY, Orange, CA and Oxford and orchestral programs with the Sacramento Philharmonic and Berkshire and Longwood Symphonies. He tours to Europe with the Curtis Symphony Orchestra following a run-out concert in Philadelphia. He joins members of the New York Philharmonic in a performance of the Busch Piano Quintet at New York City's Merkin Concert Hall at Kauffman Music Center in April.            

Orchestral highlights of recent seasons have included the Boston, Chicago, American, Sydney and Saint Louis Symphonies, New York Philharmonic and Scottish Chamber Orchestra, while recital tours have taken Mr. Serkin to Hong Kong, Cologne, Philadelphia, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Santa Monica, Princeton and New York's 92nd Street Y.  Recent summer festival appearances have included BBC London Proms, Tanglewood, La Jolla, Aldeburgh, Chautauqua and Denmark's Oremandsgaard Festival.          

Mr. Serkin currently teaches at Bard College Conservatory of Music.

William R. Hudgins was appointed principal clarinetist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra by Seiji Ozawa in 1994, occupying the Ann S.M. Banks chair, having joined the orchestra two years earlier. He has been heard as a soloist with the BSO on numerous occasions, including performances of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto, Copland's Clarinet Concerto, Bruch's Double Concerto for Clarinet and Viola, Frank Martin's Concerto for Seven Winds, Timpani, Percussion, and String Orchestra, and, for the opening of the BSO's 2014-15 season, Mozart's Sinfonia concertante in E-flat, K.297b. As a member of the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, he can be heard on their BSO Classics CDs of Brahms and Dvořák serenades (the ensemble's most recent release); the Grammy-nominated "Profanes et Sacrées: 20th-Century French Chamber Music"; "Plain Song, Fantastic Dances" (in music of Gandolfi, Foss, and Golijov), and the Grammy-nominated "Mozart Chamber Music for Strings and Winds" (in Mozart's Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, K.581), as well as a Grammy-nominated Arabesque recording of Hindemith's Quartet for Clarinet, Violin, Cello, and Piano. Recent appearances outside of the Boston Symphony Orchestra include orchestral performances and recordings with the Saito Kinen Orchestra in Matsumoto, Japan, and the Mito Chamber Orchestra in Mito, Japan, both under the direction of Seiji Ozawa; chamber music at the Rockport Chamber Music Festival, and recitals and master classes at various universities and around the United States. Before joining the BSO, Mr. Hudgins served as principal clarinetist and soloist with the Orquesta Sinfonica Municipal in Caracas, Venezuela, and the Charleston Symphony Orchestra in South Carolina. He was heard for six seasons as a member of both the Spoleto Festival Orchestra in Charleston, South Carolina, and Il Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy. He also participated as a Fellow of the Tanglewood Music Center, where he won the C.D. Jackson Award for outstanding performance. Mr. Hudgins received his bachelor's degree from the Boston University School for the Arts, studying with former BSO principal clarinetist Harold Wright.

Visit bostonsymphonychamberplayers.org for more information about the Boston Symphony Chamber Players.

James Sommerville became principal horn of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1998, occupying the Helen Sagoff Slosberg/Edna S. Kalman Chair. As principal horn, he is also a member of the Boston Symphony Chamber Players. Mr. Sommerville is also music director of the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra. Winner of the highest prizes at the Munich, Toulon, and CBC competitions, he has pursued a solo career spanning thirty years and has made critically acclaimed appearances with major orchestras throughout North America and Europe. His disc of the Mozart horn concertos with the CBC Vancouver Orchestra won the JUNO Award for Best Classical Recording in Canada. Other award-winning CBC recordings include Britten's Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings and Britten's Canticle. He has recorded chamber music for Deutsche Grammophon, Telarc, CBC, Summit, Marquis, and BSO Classics. Mr. Sommerville has been a member of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra, and Symphony Nova Scotia, and was acting solo horn of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. He has toured and recorded extensively as an orchestral player, is heard regularly on the CBC network, and has recorded all of the standard solo horn repertoire for broadcast. As a guest artist and faculty member, he has performed at chamber music festivals worldwide. Solo performances have included the world premiere of Christos Hatzis's Winter Solstice; the North American premiere of Ligeti's Hamburg Concerto with the BSO; John Williams's Horn Concerto; the world premiere of Elliott Carter's Horn Concerto, commissioned for him by the BSO; and the world premiere of Osvaldo Golijov's Sign of the Leviathan, a TMC 75th-anniversary commission, with the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra. Mr. Sommerville has himself commissioned and premiered a great deal of music by young composers, including works ranging from solo horn to full orchestra. Other solo appearances with the BSO have included Richard Strauss's Horn Concerto No. 1, Britten's Serenade for Tenor, Horn, and Strings, Frank Martin's Concerto for Seven Wind Instruments, Timpani, Percussion, and String Orchestra, Mozart's Horn Concertos 1 and 2 (the latter on forty-eight hours' notice with Bernard Haitink conducting), Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 1, and Mozart's Sinfonia concertante in E-flat for winds, K.297b. As a conductor, Mr. Sommerville has appeared with many professional orchestras and ensembles throughout Canada and the U.S.

Visit bostonsymphonychamberplayers.org for more information about the Boston Symphony Chamber Players.

THE TRAINING GROUNDS FOR THE MUSICIANS OF TOMORROW

The Tanglewood Music Center Fellowship Program is the Boston Symphony Orchestra's summer academy for advanced musical study. The TMC offers an intensive schedule of study and performance for emerging professional instrumentalists, singers, conductors, and composers who have completed most of their formal training in music.
 

Serge Koussevitzky, the Boston Symphony Orchestra's music director from 1924 to 1949, founded the school with the intention of creating a premier music academy where, with the resources of a great symphony orchestra at their disposal, young musicians would sharpen their skills under the tutelage of Boston Symphony Orchestra musicians and other specially invited artists.

The Berkshire Music Center opened formally on July 8, 1940, with both speeches (Koussevitzky, alluding to the war then raging in Europe, said, "If ever there was a time to speak of music, it is now in the New World") and music, including the first performance of Randall Thompson's Alleluia for unaccompanied chorus, which was written for the ceremony and arrived less than an hour before the event was to begin, but which made such an impression that it is sung every summer at the TMC's Opening Exercises. The TMC became Koussevitzky's pride and joy for the rest of his life. He assembled an extraordinary faculty in composition, operatic and choral activities, and instrumental performance; he himself taught the most gifted conductors.
 

Koussevitzky continued to develop the Tanglewood Music Center until 1950, a year after his retirement as the BSO's music director. Charles Munch, his successor in that position, ran the TMC from 1951 through 1962, working with Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland to shape the school's programs. In 1963, new BSO Music Director Erich Leinsdorf took over the school's reins, returning to Koussevitzky's hands-on leadership approach while restoring a renewed emphasis on contemporary music. The TMC's annual Festival of Contemporary Music, produced in association with the Fromm Music Foundation, was begun in 1963.
 

In 1970, three years before his appointment as BSO music director, Seiji Ozawa became head of the BSO's programs at Tanglewood, with Gunther Schuller leading the TMC and Leonard Bernstein as general advisor. Leon Fleisher served as the TMC's Artistic Director from 1985 to 1997. In 1994, with the opening of Seiji Ozawa Hall, the TMC centralized its activities on the Leonard Bernstein Campus, which also includes the Aaron Copland Library, chamber music studios, administrative offices, and the Leonard Bernstein Performers Pavilion adjacent to Ozawa Hall. In 1998, Ellen Highstein was appointed to the new position of Director of the Tanglewood Music Center, operating under the artistic supervision of Seiji Ozawa. Maestro James Levine took over as Music Director of the BSO in 2005 and has continued the tradition of hands-on involvement with the TMC, conducting both orchestral concerts and staged operas, as well as participating in masterclasses for singers, conductors, and composers.
 

It would be impossible to list all the distinguished musicians who have studied at the Tanglewood Music Center. According to recent estimates, 20 percent of the members of American symphony orchestras, and 30 percent of all first-chair players, studied at the TMC.
 

Today, alumni of the Tanglewood Music Center play a vital role in the musical life of the nation. Tanglewood and the Tanglewood Music Center, have become a fitting shrine to the memory of Serge Koussevitzky, a living embodiment of the vital, humanistic tradition that was his legacy. At the same time, the Tanglewood Music Center maintains its commitment to the future as one of the world's most important training grounds for the composers, conductors, instrumentalists, and vocalists of tomorrow.