Among several appearances with the North Carolina Symphony, Alessio Bax most recently performed Poulenc’s Concerto for Two Pianos alongside his wife, pianist Lucille Chung, for Opening Weekend in 2019.

Described by Gramophone magazine as “among the most remarkable young pianists now before the public,” Alessio Bax won First Prize at both the 2000 Leeds International Piano Competition and the 1997 Hamamatsu International Piano Competition and is now active on five continents as a recitalist, chamber musician, and concerto soloist. He has appeared with over 150 orchestras, including the New York, London, Royal, and St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestras, the Boston, Baltimore, Dallas, Cincinnati, Seattle, Sydney, and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestras, and the Tokyo and NHK Symphony in Japan. 

Since 2017, Bax 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. In 2009, 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 most recent album releases are Forgotten Dances and Debussy & Ravel for Two with Lucille Chung. His discography also includes Italian Inspirations; Beethoven’s Hammerklavier and Moonlight Sonatas (a Gramophone Editor’s Choice); Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto; Alessio Bax: Scriabin & Mussorgsky; and Alessio Bax plays Brahms (a Gramophone Critics’ Choice). He performed Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata for Daniel Barenboim in the PBS-TV documentary Barenboim on Beethoven: Masterclass, available on DVD. 

At the age of 14, Bax graduated with top honors from the conservatory of Bari, his hometown in Italy; after further studies in Europe, he moved to the United States in 1994. He has been on the piano faculty of Boston’s New England Conservatory since the fall of 2019 and serves as co-artistic director of the Joaquín Achúcarro Foundation for emerging pianists.