Alessio Bax & Lucille Chung

Three years after their phenomenal, sold-out concert at The Shoe Factory, partners in life and art, Alessio Bax and Lucille Chung return to Nicosia for what is certain to be a concert to remember!

With his lyrical playing, insightful interpretations, and dazzling facility, Alessio Bax has been praised by Gramophone Magazine as “a ravishing listening experience”. He is First Prize winner at the Leeds and Hamamatsu international piano competitions, as well as a 2009 Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient, and has appeared as soloist with over 100 orchestras all over the world. Lucille Chung, hailed by The Sunday Times as “a considerable artist, admirable for her bold choice of music”, made her debut at the age of ten with the Montréal Symphony Orchestra and Charles Dutoit. Since then, she has performed an extensive concerto repertoire with over 65 leading orchestras, and won a number of major competitions, including the First Prize at the Stravinsky International Piano Competition.

The recital, which is supported by the Embassy of Italy, will take place on Saturday 6 December at The Shoe Factory, Nicosia / 8:30pm, and will include works for piano four-hands by Mozart, Mendelssohn, Schubert and Ravel, and for solo piano by Kreisler, Mussorgsky and Rachmaninov.

Pianists Alessio Bax and Lucille Chung happened to meet at the 1997 Hamamatsu Piano Competition, and began a deep friendship which eventually led to their marriage in 2004. In 2003 the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival had the brilliant idea to put them together in a piano duo. Since then, the two-piano and piano-four-hand formats have become important additions to their extensive solo careers. A couple of very successful recordings (Ligeti’s complete works and Saint-Saens’ Carnival of the Animals), together with memorable performances around the world of works like the Rachmaninov Suites and Stravinsky’s own astonishing four-hand version of his complete ballet Petrushka, have helped to establish them all over the globe as the most dynamic and brilliant young piano duo of their generation.

ALESSIO BAX

Pianist Alessio Bax creates “a ravishing listening experience” (Gramophone) with his lyrical playing, insightful interpretations, and dazzling facility. First Prize winner at the Leeds and Hamamatsu international piano competitions – and a 2009 Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient –he has appeared as soloist with over 100 orchestras, including the London and Royal Philharmonic orchestras, the Dallas and Houston symphonies, the NHK Symphony in Japan, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic with Yuri Temirkanov, and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra with Sir Simon Rattle.

After a summer residency debut at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Bax has launched the 2014-15 season with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, playing two Mozart piano concertos for the society’s opening-night gala. October brought the release of his next solo album for Signum Classics, an all-Beethoven program featuring the “Hammerklavier” and “Moonlight” Sonatas. Upcoming orchestral engagements include Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto and Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto with London’s Royal Philharmonic on a UK tour, as well as appearances with orchestras in Denmark, Finland, and the US. With violinist Joshua Bell, Bax has embarked on three extensive tours of Europe and the US, crowned by dates at London’s Wigmore Hall and the Disney Hall in Los Angeles.

Among recent highlights are Rachmaninov and Mozart with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic under Temirkanov, Barber with the Dallas Symphony under Jaap van Zweden, Mozart with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra under Hans Graf, and debuts at Washington’s Kennedy Center, New York’s Carnegie Hall, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and 92nd Street Y, and the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. Besides giving solo recitals last season at Lincoln Center, in Atlanta, Dallas, Minneapolis, and Tokyo, Bax partnered with pianist Lucille Chung in the US, Canada, and Hong Kong, and Joshua Bell in South America. In 2013, he received the Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award and Lincoln Center’s Martin E. Segal Award, which recognizes young artists of exceptional accomplishment.

Bax’s acclaimed discography includes Bax & Chung (Stravinsky, Brahms, Piazzolla), Alessio Bax plays Mozart (Piano Concertos K. 491 and K. 595), Alessio Bax plays Brahms (Gramophone “Critic’s Choice”), Rachmaninov: Preludes and Melodies (American Record Guide “Critics’ Choice 2011”), and Bach Transcribed; and for Warner Classics, Baroque Reflections (Gramophone “Editor’s Choice”).

At age 14, Bax graduated with top honors from the conservatory of his hometown, Bari, Italy, and after further studies in Europe moved to the United States in 1994. A Steinway artist, he resides in New York City with his wife, pianist Lucille Chung.

LUCILLE CHUNG

Canadian pianist Lucille Chung has been acclaimed for her “stylish and refined performances” by Gramophone magazine, "combining vigor and suppleness with natural eloquence and elegance" (Le Soir). She made her debut at the age of ten with the Montréal Symphony Orchestra and Charles Dutoit subsequently invited her to be a featured soloist during the MSO Asian Tour in 1989. Since then, she has performed an extensive concerto repertoire with over 65 leading orchestras such as the Philadelphia Orchestra, Moscow Virtuosi, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Orquesta Sinfónica de Bilbao, Staatskapelle Weimar, Philharmonie de Lorraine, the Seoul Philharmonic, as well as all the major Canadian orchestras. She has appeared with conductors such as Krzysztof Penderecki, Vladimir Spivakov, Vasily Petrenko, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Peter Oundjian, Gerd Albrecht and Charles Dutoit.

As a recitalist, she has performed in over 35 countries in prestigious venues such as the Wigmore Hall in London, New York's Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center and Phillips Collection in Washington,, the Dame Myra Hess Series in Chicago, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Madrid’s Auditorio Nacional, the Great Hall of the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest, and the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. Festival appearances include the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, MDR Sommer Festival in Dresden, Montreal International Festival, Ottawa Chamber Festival, Bard Music Festival in NY.

In 1989, she was recognized on the international scene as the First Prize winner at the Stravinsky International Piano Competition. She won Second Prize at the 1992 Montreal International Music Competition, at which she also won a Special Prize for the best interpretation of the unpublished work. In 1994 she won the Second Prize at the First International Franz Liszt Competition in Weimar. In 1999, she was awarded the prestigious Virginia Parker Prize by the Canada Council for the Arts.

She graduated from both the Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School before she turned twenty. She furthered her studies in London with Maria Curcio-Diamand, Schnabel’s protégée, at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and at the Hochschule Franz Liszt in Weimar. She also graduated from the Accademia Pianistica in Imola, Italy and from the Southern Methodist University where she is now on the faculty. Lucille Chung is the recipient of the prestigious Honors Diploma at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, Italy.

Chung has been hailed as “a considerable artist, admirable for her bold choice of music” by The Sunday Times for her recordings of the complete piano works by György Ligeti on the Dynamic label. The first volume was released in 2001 to great critical acclaim, receiving the maximum R10 from Classica-Répertoire in France, 5 Stars from the BBC Music Magazine, and 5 Stars on Fono Forum in Germany. The final volume, which also contains works for two pianos, was recorded with her husband, Alessio Bax and once again received the prestigious R10 from Classica-Répertoire. Her all-Scriabin CD won the “Best Instrumental Recording” prize at the 2003 Prelude Classical Awards in Holland as well as the coveted R10 from Classica-Répertoire in France. She also recorded the two Mendelssohn Piano Concerti on the Richelieu/Radio-Canada label, which was nominated for the Prix Opus in Canada.

Programme:

Mozart: Sonata for four hands in C major, K.19d
Mendelssohn: Hebrides Overture (original arrangement)
Schubert: Fantasy in F minor

Interval

Kreisler/Rachmaninov: Liebesleid
Mussorgsky/Rachmaninov: Hopak (from The Fair at Sorochyntsy)
Rachmaninov: Prelude Op.32, No.5 in G major
Rachmaninov: Prelude Op.23, No.5 in G minor
Ravel: Ma mère l'Oye for four hands

Tickets:
€15 / €10 Concessions & members of the Pharos Arts Foundation,
Box Office: Directly from the Foundation’s website www.pharosartsfoundation.org/Tickets_online.htm or Tel. 9666-9003 (Monday - Friday 10:00am-3:00pm)