West Michigan Symphony Season Finale Features Guest Pianist Alessio Bax

West Michigan Symphony concludes it's 2012 - 2013 season with an exciting concert May 31 and June 1 featuring guest pianist Alessio Bax.
The weekend performance will feature Dmitri Shostakovich’s “Festive Overture” Op. 96; Richard Strauss’ “Don Juan” Op. 20, a tone poem after Nikolaus Lenau, and, Johannes Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 38, in B flat major with pianist Alessio Bax.

An Italian pianist, Bax, has been praised for creating “a ravishing listening experience,” with playing that is dazzling, lyrical and insightful. He has appeared as a soloist with more than 90 orchestras and has received first prize at the Leeds and Hamamatsu piano competitions and the 2013 Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award.
He is also a recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant. Earlier this year, Bax debuted at Carnegie Hall. Last summer marked Bax’s first appearance at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival and the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival and a return to the Bard Music Festival, along with five more festival performances. He has several CDs to his credit and expects to release a recording of Mozart piano concertos this summer.
Bax graduated with top honors at the record age of 14 from the conservatory of his hometown in Bari, Italy. He studied in France with Françios-Joël Thiollier and attended the Chigiana Academy in Siena under Joaquín Achúcarro. He moved to Dallas in 1994 to continue his studies with Achúcarro at SMU’s Meadow’s School of the Arts, where he is now a member of the teaching faculty. He and his wife, pianist Lucille Chung, reside in New York City.
Both concerts will be held in the majestic Frauenthal Center for Performing Arts in downtown Muskegon at 7:30 p.m.
Single tickets for this concert are $15, $20, $35 and $45 and may be purchased online at www.westmichigansymphony.org or by calling 231.726.3231. Student tickets are $5 for this concert but are not available online. College students must present a valid ID when they purchase tickets.