Alessio Bax

Alessio Bax won first prize at both the 2000 Leeds International Piano Competition and the 1997 Hamamatsu International Piano Competition and performs on five continents as a recitalist, chamber musician, and concerto soloist. He has appeared with nearly 200 orchestras across North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia and worked with conductors such as Marin Alsop, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Sir Simon Rattle, Yuri Temirkanov, and Jaap van Zweden.

As a chamber musician, Bax has collaborated with artists including Joshua Bell, James Ehnes, Steven Isserlis, Emmanuel Pahud, and Tabea Zimmermann. Since 2016 he has been artistic director of the Incontri in Terra di Siena Festival in the Val d'Orcia region of Tuscany, and he is founding artistic director of the London Festival of Chamber Music at Smith Square Hall. He appears regularly at festivals including Bravo Vail, Gstaad Menuhin, Verbier, Ravinia, Music@Menlo, and Aspen.

In 2009 Bax received an Avery Fisher Career Grant, and four years later he won both the Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award and the Lincoln Center Award for Emerging Artists. His recent album releases include the complete Beethoven cello sonatas with Paul Watkins, "Forgotten Dances," and "Debussy and Ravel for Two" with Lucille Chung. His Signum Classics discography also includes "Italian Inspirations"; Beethoven's Hammerklavier and Moonlight sonatas; Beethoven's Emperor Concerto; "Bax & Chung"; "Alessio Bax plays Mozart," recorded with London's Southbank Sinfonia; "Alessio Bax: Scriabin & Mussorgsky"; "Alessio Bax plays Brahms"; "Bach Transcribed"; and "Rachmaninov: Preludes & Melodies." His "Baroque Reflections" album was recorded for Warner Classics.

At age 14, Bax graduated with top honors from the Niccolò Piccinni Conservatory in Bari, his hometown in Italy, and after further studies in Europe he moved to the United States in 1994. He has been on the piano faculty of Boston's New England Conservatory since fall 2019 and serves as co-artistic director of the Joaquín Achúcarro Foundation for emerging pianists.