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Sir Andrew Davis has served as music director and principal
conductor of Lyric Opera of Chicago since 2000. Davis's contract
with Lyric Opera was recently extended through the 2020-2021
season. Maestro Davis was recently named chief conductor of the
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra beginning in January 2013, and he is
conductor laureate of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (having
previously served as principal conductor), conductor laureate of
the BBC Symphony Orchestra (having previously had the longest
tenure as chief conductor since BBCSO founder Sir Adrian Boult) and
former music director of Glyndebourne Festival Opera.
In the 2012-2013 Lyric Opera season he conducts Strauss's Elektra,
Verdi's Simon Boccanegra, Massenet's Werther, and Wagner's Die
Meistersinger von Nürnberg. His engagements elsewhere in 2012-2013
include Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra,
the Liceu in Barcelona (Rusalka), BBC Symphony Orchestra, Detroit
Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, St. Louis
Symphony Orchestra, the Bergen Philharmonic, Orchestre de l'opera
de la Bastille, and Glyndebourne Festival Opera (Billy Budd) .
Additionally, Sir Andrew will spend several weeks recording for
Chandos Records.
In the 2011-2012 season Sir Andrew conducted Boris Godunov,
Ariadne auf Naxos, and The Magic Flute at Lyric Opera of Chicago,
as well as a subscriber appreciation concert featuring soprano
Renée Fleming (Lyric's creative consultant) and baritone Dmitri
Hvorostovsky. 2011-2012 also saw Maestro Davis on the podium with
the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra,
the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic, the Toronto
Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the BBC
Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra in London and the
symphonies of Rotterdam, Bergen and Bamberg, as well as the
Metropolitan Opera (Don Giovanni) and the Canadian Opera Company (A
Florentine Tragedy/Gianni Schicci). He finished out the season last
summer with performances of Arabella at the Santa Fe Opera and
performances of Delius's A Mass of Life for the opening of the
Edinburgh International Festival.
With the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Maestro Davis has led concerts at
the Proms and on tour to Hong Kong, Japan, the U.S., and Europe. He
has conducted all of the world's major orchestras, from the Chicago
Symphony Orchestra to the Berlin Philharmonic and the Royal
Concertgebouw, as well as at opera houses and festivals throughout
the world, including the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala, and the
Bayreuth Festival.
Maestro Davis has a massive discography on the Chandos, Decca,
Deutsche Grammophon, Warner Classics International, Capriccio, EMI,
and CBS labels, among others. Sir Andrew currently records
exclusively for Chandos Records.
Sir Andrew's recording of Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2 of York Bowen
was nominated for a Grammy in 2011 for Best Orchestral Performance.
In 2008, Sir Andrew released Elgar's Violin Concertos, featuring
violinist James Ehnes and London's Philharmonia Orchestra (Onyx
Classics), which won Gramophone's coveted "Best of Category -
Concerto" Award. Recordings in 2007 included Beethoven's Violin
Concerto with violinist Min-Jyn Kim and the Philharmonia Orchestra
(Sony); a solo recital of operatic favorites sung by soprano Nicole
Cabell with the London Philharmonic Orchestra (Decca), which in
2008 won the Solti Prize from the French Académie du Disque
Lyrique; and Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 1 and Chopin's Piano
Concerto No. 1 with pianist Yundi Li and the Philharmonia Orchestra
(Deutsche Grammophon).
In 1992, Maestro Davis was created a Commander of the British
Empire for his services to British music, and in 1999 he was made a
Knight Bachelor in the New Year Honours List. In 1991, he received
the Royal Philharmonic Society/Charles Heidsieck Music Award. In
June of 2012, he received an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from
Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois.
Born in 1944 in Hertfordshire, England, Maestro Davis studied at
King's College, Cambridge, where he was an organ scholar before
taking up the baton. His diverse repertoire ranges from Baroque to
contemporary, and his vast conducting credits span the symphonic
and operatic and choral worlds. Sir Andrew is a great proponent of
twentieth century works including those by Janácek, Messiaen,
Boulez, Elgar, Tippett, and Britten, in addition to the core
symphonic and operatic composers' works.
Maestro Davis and his wife, soprano Gianna Rolandi, reside in
Chicago where she is the director of The Patrick G. and Shirley W.
Ryan Opera Center at Lyric Opera of Chicago.
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Sir Andrew Davis, conductor
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Combining exceptional lyricism and insight with consummate
technique, Alessio Bax is without a doubt "among the most
remarkable young pianists now before the public"
(Gramophone).He catapulted to prominence with First Prize
wins at both the Leeds and Hamamatsu International Piano
Competitions, and is now a familiar face on four continents, not
only as a recitalist and chamber musician, but as a concerto
soloist who has appeared with more than 100 orchestras, including
the London and Royal Philharmonic Orchestras, Dallas and Cincinnati
Symphonies, NHK Symphony in Japan, St. Petersburg Philharmonic with
Yuri Temirkanov, and the City of Birmingham Symphony with Sir Simon
Rattle.
After inaugurating a new three-year appointment as Artistic
Director of Tuscany's Incontri in Terra di Siena festival in summer
2017, Bax launches Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's
2017-18 season in company with his wife and fellow pianist, Lucille
Chung. Further highlights of his full season include a pair of
high-profile U.S. duo recital tours with violinist Joshua Bell and
flutist Emmanuel Pahud, respectively; UK solo recitals at London's
Wigmore Hall and the Leeds Piano Festival; collaborations with U.S.
orchestras from the Minnesota Orchestra to the North Carolina
Philharmonic, on concertos by Gershwin, Grieg, Rachmaninov,
Saint-Saëns, and Schumann; return engagements in Yerevan with the
Armenian Philharmonic and in Hong Kong; and Signum Classics'
release of his recording of Beethoven's "Emperor" concerto with the
Southbank Sinfonia, paired with rarely heard solo works by the
master composer.
The 2016-17 season saw Bax return to the Vancouver Symphony
for MacDowell's Second Piano Concerto with Bramwell Tovey, and
step in at the eleventh hour to play Brahms's Second
Piano Concerto with the Cincinnati Symphony under Sir Andrew Davis,
in what proved "the most exciting debut in recent memory"
(Cincinnati Enquirer). He also gave three performances at
the Wigmore Hall, including his solo recital debut, which aired
live on BBC Radio 3, and a duo recital with his regular
collaborator, Berlin Philharmonic concertmaster Dashin Kashimoto,
by way of a coda to their extensive Asian tour. Other
highlights of recent seasons include Mozart with the Los Angeles
Chamber Orchestra under Hans Graf; Rachmaninov with London's
Southbank Sinfonia led by Vladimir Ashkenazy; his Minnesota
Orchestra debut under Andrew Litton; a return to the Dallas
Symphony for Barber under Jaap van Zweden; season-opening
appearances with the Colorado Symphony; and concerts at L.A.'s
Disney Hall, Washington's Kennedy Center, and New York's Carnegie
Hall. In 2009, the pianist was awarded an Avery Fisher Career
Grant, and four years later he received both the Andrew
Wolf Chamber Music Award and Lincoln Center's Martin E. Segal
Award, which recognizes young artists of exceptional
accomplishment.
Bax is a staple on the international summer festival circuit,
and has performed at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland; England's
International Piano Series and Aldeburgh and Bath festivals; the
Risør Festival in Norway; and the Moritzburg Festival, Ruhr
Klavier-Festival, and Beethovenfest Bonn in Germany. In the U.S.,
he makes regular appearances at New York's Bard Music Festival, the
Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, the Bravo! Vail festival, Mimir
Chamber Music Festival, Minnesota's Beethoven Festival, Seattle
Chamber Music Festival, Music@Menlo, Santa Fe Chamber Music
Festival, Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, and Kentucky's
Chamber Music Festival of Lexington. He has given recitals at New
York's Lincoln Center and other major music halls around the world,
including those of Rome, Milan, Bilbao, Madrid, Paris, London, Tel
Aviv, Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, and
Washington, DC. As a chamber musician, Bax has collaborated with
Emanuel Ax, Sol Gabetta, Steven Isserlis, Nicholas Phan, Paul
Watkins, Jörg Widmann, and the Emerson String Quartet, among many
others.
Bax's celebrated discography for Signum Classics includes
Beethoven's "Hammerklavier" and "Moonlight" Sonatas
(a Gramophone "Editor's Choice"); Bax
& Chung, a duo disc with Lucille Chung that includes
Stravinsky's original four-hand version of the
ballet Pétrouchka as well as music by Brahms and
Piazzolla; Alessio Bax plays Mozart, comprising
Piano Concertos K. 491 and K. 595 with London's Southbank Sinfonia
and Simon Over; Alessio Bax: Scriabin &
Mussorgsky (named "Recording of the Month … and quite
possibly my recording of the year" by MusicWeb
International); Alessio Bax plays Brahms
(a Gramophone "Critics' Choice"); Bach
Transcribed; and Rachmaninov: Preludes &
Melodies (an American Record Guide
"Critics' Choice 2011"). Recorded for Warner Classics,
his Baroque Reflections album was also
a Gramophone "Editor's Choice."He performed
Beethoven's "Hammerklavier" Sonata for maestro Daniel Barenboim in
the PBS-TV documentary Barenboim on Beethoven:
Masterclass, available as a DVD boxed set on the EMI
label.
Alessio Bax graduated with top honors at the record age of 14
from the conservatory of Bari, his hometown in Italy, where his
teacher was Angela Montemurro. He studied in France with
Francois-Joël Thiollier and attended the Chigiana Academy in Siena
under Joaquín Achúcarro. In 1994 he moved to Dallas to continue his
studies with Achúcarro at SMU's Meadows School of the Arts, where,
with Lucille Chung, he is now the Johnson-Prothro
Artist-in-Residence. He also serves with Chung as co-artistic
director of Dallas' Joaquín Achúcarro Foundation, created to
cultivate the legacy of the Basque pianist and to support young
pianists' careers. A Steinway artist, Bax resides in New York City
with Chung and their three-year-old daughter, Mila. Outside the
concert hall he is known for his longtime obsession with fine food;
as a 2013 New York Times profile noted, he is
not only notorious for hosting "epic" multi-course dinner parties,
but often spends his intermissions dreaming of meals to come.
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Alessio Bax
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