DAVENPORT, IOWA (January 11, 2023) — The Quad City Symphony Orchestra (QCSO) is pleased to announce that world-renowned pianist Emanuel Ax will be the featured Gala Guest Artist during the upcoming 2023-24 season. The multi-Grammy®-award-winning artist will perform Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Concertos N° 25 (K503) and N° 20 (K466). The QCSO will bookend these works with Gustav Mahler’s Blumine and Igor Stravinsky’s The Firebird: Suite.
This Gala Concert is scheduled for Saturday, April 27, 2024, 7:30PM, at the Adler Theatre in Davenport, Iowa. A ticketed dessert reception with an opportunity to meet the artist will immediately follow in the Gold Room at the Hotel Blackhawk.
QCSO Music Director and Conductor Mark Russell Smith said, “It is an honor and privilege for me and for the musicians of the QCSO to collaborate with Emanuel Ax. He is an extraordinary artist and person who shares our passion for bringing great masterworks to life. Gala concerts such as these bring a special energy and focus to all of us, and I look forward to sharing the performance with the Quad Cities. It will be a highlight in the life of our musical community.”
“Bringing Mr Ax, one of the world’s greatest classical pianists, to the Quad Cities in 2024 for this momentous concert represents a tremendous statement about the vitality of our community’s arts scene,” said QCSO Executive Director. “This is only his second performance with the QCSO, and we couldn’t be more thrilled for him to share his incredible artistry in collaboration with our orchestra for the Quad Cities community.”
The QCSO will announce the remainder of their 2023-24 Season on March 29, 2023.
ABOUT EMANUEL AX
Born to Polish parents in what is today Lviv, Ukraine, Emanuel Ax moved to Winnipeg, Canada, with his family when he was a young boy. Ax made his New York début in the Young Concert Artists Series and in 1974 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 Avery Fisher Prize.
In fall 2021, he resumed a post-COVID touring schedule that included concerts with the Colorado, Pacific, Cincinnati, and Houston symphonies as well as Minnesota, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, and Cleveland orchestras. His 2022-23 season includes a tour with Itzhak Perlman “and Friends” and a continuation of the “Beethoven for 3” touring and recording project with partners Leonidas Kavakos and Yo-Yo Ma.
Ax has been a Sony Classical exclusive recording artist since 1987 and, following the success of the Brahms Trios with Kavakos and Ma, the trio launched an ambitious, multi-year project to record all the Beethoven Trios and Symphonies arranged for trio, of which the first two discs have recently been released. He 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. In the 2004-05 season, Ax contributed to an International EMMY® Award-Winning BBC documentary commemorating the Holocaust that aired on the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. In 2013, Ax’s recording Variations received the Echo Klassik Award for Solo Recording of the Year (19th Century Music/Piano).
Ax is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and holds honorary doctorates of music from Skidmore College, New England Conservatory of Music, Yale University, and Columbia University. For more information about Mr. Ax’s career, please visit EmanuelAx.com.
TICKETS
2022-23 QCSO Subscribers will have early access to purchase tickets on Wednesday, March 29, 2023. A second pre-sale period will open on Wednesday, April 26, 2023, for anyone purchasing a subscription to the QCSO’s 2023-24 Season. Single tickets will open for public sale on Wednesday, May 16, 2023.
Those interested in the first early access period can still become a 2022-23 Subscriber by purchasing a Pick-3 Subscription by February 5, 2023. This subscription includes tickets to the QCSO’s three remaining Masterworks Concerts:
- Masterworks IV: Bella and Brahms on February 4 and 5, 2023
- Masterworks V: Fierce Females on March 4 and 5, 2023
- Masterworks VI: Mahler One on April 1 and 2, 2023
Tickets and Subscriptions can be purchased online at QCSO.org, by phone at (563) 322-7276, or in person at the QCSO Box Office (open Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9AM–4:30PM) at 327 Brady Street, Davenport, Iowa.
Mission support for the Quad City Symphony Orchestra is provided by the Quad Cities Cultural Trust and Quad City Bank and Trust.
