Alessio Bax . . . have piano, will travel

New Blog Entry on the Huffington Post

2013-01-12T20:00:00.002-05:00

I was asked to write a blog for the prestigious Huffington Post on a beloved piece of mine: Stravinsky's Petrouchka. I have had a love affair with this fantastic work since I was a little boy. It was great to put into words years and years of emotions. READ IT HERE....

Cruising Along....

2012-05-15T00:02:00.002-04:00

Lucille and I were recently invited to join a group from the stellar Verbier Festival on board of the ultra-luxurious MSEuropa cruise ship. The cruise went from Dubai to Istanbul, but we had to get off at Sharm-el-Sheik because of prior commitments. It was our first cruise ever. Being extremely prone to sea-sickness I never dreamed to go on a cruise, but this opportunity seemed just too good

One of a Kind, and the Right Kind

2012-05-14T23:43:00.001-04:00

It’s amazing how one learns on stage. Sometimes, actually most of the times, you learn by mistakes. Something doesn’t work during a concert and you swear not to repeat the mistake again. A few lucky times, you learn from something that goes really well. Something that magically works on the spot and you swear to repeat again at the earliest opportunity. And some other times you have an

2012-03-14T13:46:00.002-04:00

Food Food and Food So by now, if anyone has been reading this blog, you must know of my passion for food. I recently had the honor to have a dinner for a few foodie friends including my friend Bonjwing, who's an amazing photographer and food blogger, aka Ulterior Epicure. He snapped some amazing shots of my food right HERE.

European January

2012-01-09T11:34:00.000-05:00

After an incredibly exciting New Year's Eve spent playing Liszt First Concerto at the Seoul Arts Center and greeting 2012 with a breathtaking post-concert fireworks display , I flew back to New York for just a day in order to repack my bags, organize my thoughts and head for the first of two European trips in January. Check out the celebration HERE After having spent a lot of 2011 in the

Music@Menlo Carte Blanche Program Notes

2011-08-08T16:01:00.000-04:00

Once again one of my summer's highlights has been a Carte Blanche recital at the wonderful Music@Menlo Festival. This year's festival was focused on Brahms, and so was my program. I did stray away, though, into a very specific direction with a couple of interesting addition to the Brahmsfest! Thanks to Music@Menlo for the opportunity and to its wonderful audience for having the patience to sit

JUNE BUG

2011-07-20T12:37:00.004-04:00

The month of June begs for a blog entry. I very proudly managed to squeeze in some of my favorite destinations into our touring schedule and had a wonderful “working” holiday. We ended the month of May with a dream of mine. For very obvious reasons I always wanted to add a visual element to Lucille's and my performance of Stravinsky's own four hand version of the complete Petrouchka ballet. The

FINAL PICS FROM CANADA!

2011-03-20T22:46:00.000-04:00

I have finally found a moment to organize my pictures from Prairie Debut! Check them out here! And let me know what you think!

Early Inspirations

2011-03-11T19:19:00.002-05:00

I was recently asked to provide some artist's notes on the "Early Inspirations" program at Alice Tully Hall on March 25th hosted by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center I will be joined by a wonderful group of musicians (Ani and Ida Kavafian, Paul Neubauer, Anne-Marie McDermott and Nicolas Alsteadt) in some great early works by Mahler, Berg, Shostakovich and Bartok. Here's my two cents.

An Amazing Journey, and gut feelings.....

2011-03-01T15:04:00.000-05:00

Here we are, unbelievably, at the end of the Canadian Prairies Tour for Prairie Debut. We started in October, went back in December and now, for the last and longest leg, in February/March for 11 concerts in 12 days. Tonight, in Brandon, Manitoba, Lucille and I will play the last concert, our 25th event on this long tour. We gave a masterclass this morning at Brandon University, hosted by pianist

Last Prairie Tour Itinerary

2011-02-20T10:37:00.000-05:00

View Larger Map

NEW WEBSITE

2011-01-13T19:52:00.002-05:00

Check out my brand new website.... CLICK HERE

A silly little trailer, and my first (very rough) attempt to video editing......

2010-12-14T15:11:00.001-05:00

Click HERE for the Prairie Debut Trailer

Back to the South (Winnipeg !)

2010-12-07T20:48:00.000-05:00

We're on a flight back to Winnipeg, after our Northern adventure in Thompson and Snow Lake. Internet-less and phone-less for two days we would have felt completely disconnected from the world were not for the warmth of the locals. We had a great time. The two and a half hour drive through a forest reminiscent of the Siberian taiga, was pretty uneventful until we got closer to Snow Lake and a

Canadian Tour 2 - part 1

2010-12-05T21:01:00.002-05:00

Greetings from Thompson, Manitoba. Check it out on this MAP We were greeted by a a balmy -26C (-15F) at the Thompson airport. The air brought me back to our Trans-siberian tours. You can read my first long diary from that amazing trip HERE. The air is cold and dry and as soon as you step out you feel your nose hair starting to freeze. I have to say it is much more pleasant than the relatively

Canada's Prairie Tour- Part Two...itinerary

2010-12-01T21:23:00.001-05:00

Here's the google map itinerary for the second leg of our tour through Canada's Prairies.... More posts to follows...hopefully! :-0

Canadian tour #2

2010-11-02T15:06:00.003-04:00

Tonight is the last concert of the first portion of Canadian "Prairie Debut" tour. At 1600km of driving through Saskatchewan and 6 concerts in 6 days, this is the shortest of three tours. The next one will be in December and the last one in February, for a total of almost 30 concerts and a few workshops. The program is a healthy mix of four hand works with my wife, Lucille Chung, by Mozart,

Canadian Prairies Tour #1

2010-10-29T15:29:00.006-04:00

Oct. 29, 2010 It's the second day of our Canadian "Prairie Debut" tour. We flew into Saskatoon, spent the night and embarked on our drive to Hudson Bay, SK. 330km away, but the roads were so icy already that slow traffic made the journey last about five hours. The scenery is quite stunning. Winter has already started, and we have continuous views of the white prairies, and an enormous sky. It's

Music@Menlo: Found in Translation (Aug 9)

2010-08-12T08:08:00.000-04:00

VIDEO CLIP FROM MUSIC@MENLO 2010's Carte Blanche!Music@Menlo: Found in Translation (Aug 9)

August 8, 10am. Music@Menlo: Carte Blanche Concert IV: Found in Translation

2010-07-30T00:24:00.000-04:00

Music@Menlo: Carte Blanche Concert IV: Found in Translation

It's been a while: a mid-summer night's story

2010-07-23T00:44:00.001-04:00

It's been a while since my last post. It's about 1230am now, but summer is going by so fast that I suddenly felt the need to jot the first part of it down. This is a wonderfully hectic summer. Six festivals, a Rachmaninov Solo CD for Signum, a three-week long tour of Japan, a couple of recitals and a concerto performance are just the musical part of this crazy summer. Lucille and I also sold our

Carte Blanche at Music@Menlo

2010-05-21T15:02:00.000-04:00

I was asked to come up with a Carte Blanche recital concept for this summer's Music@Menlo Festival. Coming up with a three-part recital spanning from Bach to Berio was a very interesting process for me. The concert will take place on August 8th, and will start at 10 am at the Stent Family Hall, at Menlo School. For more info check out the Festival page for the concert. I was also asked to write

My fastest and shortest version of BWV 846

2010-04-25T13:02:00.002-04:00

Click HERE to see the AMEX commercial!!!

Mid-travel

2010-04-25T12:06:00.001-04:00

I'm now at AA's flagship lounge in Miami at the beginning of a month-long "outing". I was lucky enough to spend last week playing at the Aruba International Piano Festival. The name says it all. Lucille joined me and played for the first few concerts but had to leave a couple of days ago to play Saint-Saens' Second Concerto in Toronto. The rehearsal and performing schedule was supposed to be

weather trouble

2010-02-26T11:45:00.000-05:00

8am. I wake up to a snow covered view of Central Park. Pretty, I think, then look down and see cars and buses either stopped on the circle, or spinning their wheels trying to get out of the snow. I get my Blackberry out of bedside mode, and the phone starts buzzing uncontrollably. 10 emails, 7 facebook alerts and 1 voice mail. Everything is pretty standard, but the voice mail worries me. As it