First Prize winner of the Stravinsky International Piano Competition, Lucille Chung has been celebrated for her “stylish and refined” performances by Gramophone. She was born in Montreal, and made her debut at the age of ten with Montreal Symphony Orchestra, after which Charles Dutoit invited her as soloist on the orchestra’s tour to Asia. She has since performed with orchestras around the world, including Philadelphia Orchestra, Moscow Virtuosi, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Seoul Philharmonic, Dallas Symphony, and Israel Chamber Orchestra, as well as all the major orchestras in Canada, among them the Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver Symphonies and National Arts Centre Orchestra. She has appeared with conductors such as Krzysztof Penderecki, Vladimir Spivakov, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and Vasily Petrenko. Her solo discography includes the - 13 - first volume of her recording of György Ligeti’s complete piano works on the Dynamic label, as well as Camille Saint-Saëns: Piano Transcriptions, Mozart & Me, as well as an all-Poulenc and an all-Liszt albums for Signum Classics.
The second volume of Chung’s Ligeti project on the Dynamic label comprises his works for piano four hands and two pianos, and marks the first recorded collaboration between Bax & Chung. The disc garnered the maximum R10 Classica from the French magazine Répertoire and five stars from Fono Forum in Germany. In 2006, the duo released Saint-Saëns’s Carnival of the Animals with Fort Worth Symphony under Miguel Harth-Bedoya, with Michael York as narrator. Bax & Chung: Piano Duo appeared on Signum Classics in 2013, pairing Stravinsky’s four-hand version of his ballet Pétrouchka with music by Brahms and Piazzolla.
Together, Bax & Chung have performed in major festivals and concert halls around the world; in 2008 alone, they logged 20,000 miles by train as they toured their four-hand Pétrouchka across the far reaches of Stravinsky’s homeland. They have appeared at international festivals including Verbier in Switzerland; Við Djúpið in Iceland; the opening concert of Chungmu Hall in Seoul, Korea; the Pau Casals, Castilla y León, Torroella de Montgrí, and Pamplona International Festivals in Spain; the Felicja Blumental Festival in Tel Aviv; Lübecker Kammermusikfest and Schloss Elmau in Germany; Ottawa International Chamber Festival in Canada; and Music@Menlo, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Mainly Mozart, and Bard Music Festival in the U.S.; besides giving performances in Aruba, Barbados, China, Cyprus, France, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Italy, Palestine, Russia, and the United Kingdom. In recent seasons they have performed at New York’s Lincoln Center; with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, the Chopin Society in Saint Paul, MN; Dumbarton Oaks series in Washington, DC; at Italy’s Incontri in Terra di Siena Festival, where Bax assumed the role of Artistic Director in 2017; and at Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, playing Mozart’s Concerto for Two Pianos with the Filarmónica de Buenos Aires.
After meeting at the 1997 Hamamatsu Competition, Bax & Chung carried on a courtship by telephone and email while on separate tours, eventually marrying in 2004. They are also co-artistic directors of the Joaquín Achúcarro Foundation in Dallas, Texas, created to cultivate the legacy of the Basque pianist and to support young pianists’ careers.

Combining exceptional lyricism and insight with consummate technique, Alessio Bax is without a doubt “among the most remarkable young pianists now before the public” (Gramophone). He catapulted to prominence with First Prize wins at both the Leeds and Hamamatsu International Piano Competitions, and is now a familiar face

on five continents, not only as a recitalist and chamber musician, but also as a concerto soloist who has appeared with more than 150 orchestras, including the London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic and St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestras, the Boston, Dallas, Cincinnati, Sydney, and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestras, and the NHK Symphony in Japan, collaborating with such eminent conductors as Marin Alsop, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Sir Andrew Davis, Sir Simon Rattle, Yuri Temirkanov, and Jaap van Zweden.

Since 2017, he has been the Artistic Director of the Incontri in Terra di Siena Festival, a Summer Music Festival in the Val d’Orcia region of Tuscany. He appears regularly in festivals such as Seattle, Bravo Vail, Salon-de-Provence, Le Pont in Japan, Great Lakes, Verbier, Ravinia, and Music@Menlo.

Bax constantly explores many facets of his career. He released his eleventh Signum Classics album, Italian Inspirations, whose program was also the vehicle for his solo recital debut at New York’s 92nd Street Y as well as on tour. He has also toured Spain with violinist Joshua Bell and cellist Steven Isserlis. Bax and his regular piano duo partner, Lucille Chung, gave recitals at New York’s Lincoln Center and were featured with the St. Louis Symphony and Stéphane Denève. He has also presented the complete works of Beethoven for cello and piano with cellist Paul Watkins in New York City. Further highlights of previous seasons were his debuts with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Ulster Orchestra Belfast, Polish Baltic Philharmonic Gdansk and his return for the fourth time for two recitals at the historic Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires festival as well as return appearances at the Seattle Chamber Music Festival and at the Bravo! Vail Music Festival with the Dallas Symphony and Fabio Luisi conducting.

Bax revisited Mozart’s K. 491 and K. 595 concertos, as heard on the recording Alessio Bax Plays Mozart, for debuts with the Boston and Melbourne Symphonies, both with Sir Andrew Davis, and with the Sydney Symphony, which he led from the keyboard. Other highlights include his Auckland Philharmonia debut, concerts in

Israel, a Japanese tour featuring dates with the Tokyo Symphony and a high-profile U.S. tour with Berlin Philharmonic principal flautist Emmanuel Pahud. Previous seasons also saw Bax make his solo recital debut at London’s Wigmore Hall, which aired live on BBC Radio 3, and gave concerts at L.A.’s Disney Hall, Washington’s Kennedy Center, and New York’s Carnegie Hall.

He was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant, and four years later he received both the Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award and the Lincoln Center Award for Emerging Artists.

Bax’s celebrated Signum Classics discography includes Beethoven’s Hammerklavier and Moonlight Sonatas (a Gramophone “Editor’s Choice”); Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto, Bax & Chung, a duo disc with Lucille Chung; Alessio Bax plays Mozart, recorded with London’s Southbank Sinfonia; Alessio Bax: Scriabin & Mussorgsky (named “Recording of the Month ... and quite possibly ... of the year” by MusicWeb International); Alessio Bax plays Brahms (a Gramophone “Critics’ Choice”); Bach Transcribed and Rachmaninov: Preludes & Melodies (an American Record Guide “Critics’ Choice 2011”). Recorded for Warner Classics, his Baroque Reflections album was also a Gramophone

“Editor’s Choice.” He performed Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata for Daniel Barenboim in the PBS-TV documentary Barenboim on Beethoven: Masterclass, available on DVD from EMI.

At age 14, Bax graduated with top honours from the conservatory of Bari, his hometown in Italy, and after further studies in Europe, he moved to the United States in 1994. A Steinway artist, he lives in New York City with pianist Lucille Chung and their daughter, Mila. He was invited to join the piano faculty of Boston’s New England Conservatory in 2019.