Emanuel Ax, piano Leonidas Kavakos, violin Yo-Yo Ma, cello

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. Mr. Ax made his New York debut 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 by the Avery Fisher Prize. In the 2024/25 season he will appear as guest soloist during the New York Philharmonic’s opening week which will mark his 47th annual visit to the orchestra. He will return to the Cleveland and Philadelphia orchestras, National, San Diego, Nashville and Pittsburgh symphonies and Rochester Philharmonic. A fall recital tour will culminate in the spring in Chicago and his annual Carnegie Hall appearance. Additional performances include a special project in duo with clarinetist Anthony McGill, chamber music with Itzhak Perlman and Friends, and an extensive European tour. Mr. 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 a multi-year project to record all the Beethoven Trios and Symphonies arranged for trio of which the first three discs have been released. He has received GRAMMY® Awards for his cycle of Haydn’s piano sonatas and for recordings with Yo-Yo Ma. In the 2004/05 season Mr. Ax contributed to an International EMMY® Award-Winning BBC documentary commemorating the Holocaust. In 2013, Mr. Ax received the Echo Klassik Award for Solo Recording of the Year. Mr. 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 Emanuel Ax, please visit his website.

Leonidas Kavakos is recognized across the world as a violinist and artist of rare quality, acclaimed for his matchless technique, his captivating artistry and his superb musicianship, and the integrity of his playing. He works regularly with the world’s greatest orchestras and conductors and plays as recitalist in the world’s premier halls and festivals. Kavakos has developed close relationships with major orchestras and has succeeded in building a strong profile as a conductor. Highlights of the 24/25 season in North America include a recital tour performing Bach’s complete Sonatas and Partitas, and recitals with Daniil Trifonov. Elsewhere, he takes his ApollΩn Ensemble on tour to Asia and conducts the Israel Philharmonic. He continues his partnership with Emanuel Ax and Yo-Yo Ma in trio concerts at major European venues. In 2025, Kavakos will be the new Artistic Director of the classical music festival of the Lotte Concert Hall in Seoul, Korea. Kavakos is an exclusive recording artist with Sony Classics. Recent releases include Bach: Sei Solo and the re-release of his 2007 recording of the complete Beethoven Sonatas with Enrico Pace, for which he was named Echo Klassik Instrumentalist of the year. He also released Beethoven for Three: Symphony No. 4 and Op. 97 ‘Archduke,’ the third in a new series of Beethoven recordings with Ax and Ma. Born and brought up in a musical family in Athens, Kavakos curates an annual violin and chamber music masterclass in Athens, which attracts violinists and ensembles from all over the world. He plays the ‘Willemotte’ Stradivarius violin of 1734.

For more information about Leonidas Kavakos, please visit his website.

Yo-Yo Ma’s multi-faceted career is testament to his belief in culture’s power to generate trust and understanding. Whether performing new or familiar works for cello, bringing communities together to explore culture’s role in society, or engaging unexpected musical forms, Yo-Yo strives to foster connections that stimulate the imagination and reinforce our humanity. Most recently, Yo-Yo began Our Common Nature, a cultural journey to celebrate the ways that nature can reunite us in pursuit of a shared future. Our Common Nature follows the Bach Project, a 36-community, six-continent tour of J. S. Bach’s cello suites paired with local cultural programming. Both endeavors reflect Yo-Yo’s lifelong commitment to stretching the boundaries of genre and tradition to understand how music helps us to imagine and build a stronger society. Yo-Yo Ma was born in 1955 to Chinese parents living in Paris, where he began studying the cello with his father at age four. When he was seven, he moved with his family to New York City, where he continued his cello studies before pursuing a liberal arts education. Yo-Yo has recorded more than 120 albums, is the winner of 19 Grammy Awards, and has performed for nine American presidents, most recently on the occasion of President Biden’s inauguration. He has received numerous awards, including the National Medal of the Arts, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Birgit Nilsson Prize. He has been a UN Messenger of Peace since 2006, and was recognized as one of TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2020. 

For more information about Yo-Yo Ma, please visit his website.