Emanuel Ax & Yo-Yo Ma in Chapel Hill

Emanuel Ax is an American classical pianist, born in Lviv in 1949. He won the inaugural Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition and became known for interpretations of Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms and Haydn, including recordings of Haydn’s piano sonatas. His New York debut came through the Young Concert Artists series. He went on to give recitals at Carnegie Hall and perform as a soloist with ensembles including the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Berlin Philharmonic. Chamber music has formed a substantial part of his concert life, particularly his decades-long duo partnership with cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

Yo-Yo Ma is an American cellist, born in Paris in 1955 and raised in New York. His repertoire extends across Baroque music, the standard cello concertos, chamber music and contemporary works. He is particularly associated with Bach’s six Cello Suites, which he has recorded several times, and with collaborative albums including Hush with Bobby McFerrin, Appalachia Waltz with Edgar Meyer and The Goat Rodeo Sessions. In 1962, the seven-year-old Ma performed for President John F. Kennedy at a televised cultural event in Washington, where Leonard Bernstein introduced him. After decades of recitals and concerto engagements, he founded the Silk Road Project in 1998; its musicians began workshops at Tanglewood in 2000 and later toured as the Silkroad Ensemble. The Bach Project, launched in 2018, included complete performances of the cello suites at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus in Athens and Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado. He gives solo recitals at Carnegie Hall and joins orchestras for concerto performances at Symphony Hall in Boston.