Celebrated for his lyrical and poetic manner of playing and his brilliant technique, Emanuel Ax is one of the best known and most highly regarded musicians of the present day. Born in Lvov (Ukraine) he began to study the piano at the age of six in Warsaw. When the family moved to North America in 1961, he continued his studies at the Juilliard School of Music under Mieczylaw Munz. Among recent highpoints in a glittering career, Emanuel Ax has had an all-season "Perspective" series at Carnegie Hall and has been appointed Pianist in Residence at the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Other recent engagements include a tour of Europe with the New York Philharmonic and concerts with the Concertgebouw Orchestra, the London Symphony and the Budapest Festival Orchestra. Last season Ax also collaborated with the Mark Morris Dance Group, played Mozart's Piano Concertos in a series of concerts at the Lincoln Center in New York, performed at London's Barbican Theatre and at Peter Sellars' "New Crowned Hope" Mozart Festival in Vienna. This season he is playing Strauss with the Dresden Staatskapelle for a CD recording in Dresden, as well as in Vienna and on a tour of Asia; he will also appear with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Munich and in Carnegie Hall, New York. Other concerts are scheduled with the Philharmonia Orchestra and Gustavo Dudamel, the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, the Orchestre National de France, the Tonhalle-Orchestra Zurich and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Emanuel Ax is a committed promoter of 20th century music and has given four world premieres in the last few years. He furthermore often performs duos with the cellist Yo-Yo Ma auf; their recordings together have won them Grammy Awards. Since 1987 Ax has had an exclusive recording contract with Sony. His latest recordings are of Brahms with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Bernard Haitink as well as Chopin's complete works for piano and orchestra with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under Charles Mackerras.