Alessio Bax

Alessio Bax

Piano

Artistic Director of the Incontri in Terra di Siena Festival

“Bax is a true storyteller, using the piano as his voice.”
— The Independent

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Lorna Neill

+44 (0)7798 531 819
lorna@musicinteralia.com

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“Rachmaninov’s most integrated work for these forces saves any keyboard fireworks for the Allegro finale and Bax was not of a mind to put much showmanship into them. Instead, this was a real ensemble performance, the pianist always attentive of his orchestras colleagues and the communication between himself and the conductor seamless”

Keith Bruce, VoxCarnyx, 2026

“Alessio Bax brought an expressive eloquence and artistic appreciation of structure and cogency of musical rhetoric that were at least as engaging and persuasive”

Donal Hurley, Edinburgh Music Review, 2026

“Nobody who heard this performance can surely have gone home disappointed. It may have been light on fireworks, but it was high on musicality which, therefore, made it all the more treasurable“

Simon Thompson, Bachtrack, 2026

“Bax is an elite virtuoso, and he savored the cascades of notes that poured from the piano while keeping the discursive work firmly on course”

Mark S Jordan, Seen and Heard, 2025

“Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 requires a soloist who can dazzle, charm, and converse, and Alessio Bax, making his Cleveland Orchestra debut, met the challenge with style. Though the score brims with theatrical flourishes, Bax approached it as chamber music on a grand scale”

Kevin McLaughlin, Cleveland Classical, 2025

“With the APO, the Grieg concerto gave the Italian pianist the opportunity to combine crispness with poetry, effortlessly moving from impeccably chiselled minor to yearning major, in response to eloquently pleading cellos. The cadenza journeyed from rapturous nocturne to leonine roars and after, the adagio allowed Bax further exquisite dialogue with orchestral colleagues; the finale had the unbridled swing of a folk dance in which all were merry participants. A seat in the circle was an advantage at encore time, watching Bax play a Scriabin prelude using just one hand, with a richness of tone that you might have thought was coming from two.”

New Zealand Herald (William Dart), April 2019

“Alessio Bax is a musician who oozes grace and class, both in his stage manner and in his playing.He is capable of great delicacy, as in his handling of the airy birdsong at the top of the keyboard in Liszt’s St Francoise d’Assise: Lapredication aux oiseaux attests, as well as power and muscle, shown to thrilling effect in the same composer’s sonata Apres une Lecture de Dante which followed and closed the evening. After the Liszt pieces in the second half brought the house down, Bax gave two encores to set the seal of this special recital.“

Sydney Daily Telegraph (Steve Moffatt), 26 March 2019

“Making his BSO debut, Bax gave the Mozart concerto a brisk, even-keeled treatment, and orchestra matched soloist in character. [..]Bax’sperformance was built on a foundation of understated grace, moderate dynamic shifts, and easy flow between statements”

Boston Globe (Zoë Madonna), January 2019

“The most exciting debutin recent memory. An elegant pianist, he (Bax) approached every phrase with a singing tone, yet he displayed plenty of fire in the powerhouse passages. (…) Listeners were on their feet, demanding bow after bow from the soloist.”

Cincinnati Enquirer (Janelle Gelfand), April 2017

“But the most dramatic performance of the evening belonged to pianist Alessio Bax, who skippered the remarkable dynamics within Faure’s “Piano Quartet No. 2 in G Minor, Opus 45.” From the tossed sea sensibility immediately conjured for the opening Allegro movement to the similarly sudden conclusion to the third Adagio non troppo movement that triggered an audible audience gasp a few rows behind me, this was perhaps the most fully realized and openly emotive performance so far in the festival.”

– Lexington Herald-Leader (Walter Tunis) (Faure’s Piano Quartet No. 2 in G Minor, Opus 45 at the Chamber Music Festival of Lexington), 2017

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“(…) pianist Bax was impressive. This relatively young artist eschewed overly dramatic gestures of the crowd-pleasing sort and channeled all his considerable energy into the music, demonstrating complete mastery of the demanding writing.”

–Cleveland.com

“Bax is a true storyteller, using the piano as his voice, and Gabetta reminds us through these selections why the cello was created – as an instrument of raw emotion to reflect our own capacity for feeling. This concert was a wonderful showcase of two talented artists.”

–The Independent

“Throughout the evening, pianist Bax proved an inspired partner for Bell. The two ably prodded each other, especially in the night's sonatas. In the Brahms, particularly, Bax's account of the keyboard part was notable for its tonal warmth and excellent textural balance.”

–Telegram

“Bax found plenty of poetry in the work [Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No 14 “Moonlight”] and capped it with quite a stormy finale. (…) Pictures at an Exhibition is a virtuoso piece in its piano form, full of many moods including some spooky passages. Virtuosity and variety were strongly present in Bax’s interpretation, which ended with a grand Great Gate of Kiev.”

–Star Telegram

“Bax wisely eschewed extensive rubato in the first movement [Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No 14 “Moonlight”], marked Adagio sostenuto, instead creating a dignified, elegant sustained line. He attacked the thorny third movement, marked Presto agitato, at a breakneck clip, but Bax is a musician with technique up to the task.”

–Theater Jones

“Bax gave it [Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 31, No. 1 in A major, Op. 110] a sensitive and insightful performance. (…) The majestic fugal section in the last movement was played with great clarity and the entrance of the subject in octaves in the bottom of the instrument was an awe-inspiring sound. It was fascinating to hear him boldly step forward in this solo appearance and then return to the collaborator a moment later.”

–Theater Jones

“Bax’s bracing prestidigitation was evident in the strongly projected playing of the declarative solo that begins the work [Barber’s Piano Concerto], and even more in the explosive later cadenza and his consistently fast and accurate passagework. Yet the soloist was also able to relax into the more lyrical sections, with some affecting phrasing in the Canto middle movement. (…) Bax racheted up the power and velocity in the virtuosic final section, making the sparks fly in a combustible coda.”

–Chicago Classical Review

“Bax had the measure of this knuckle-busting virtuoso piece [Barber’s Piano Concerto]. His winning account combined youthful bravura in the outer movements with an innate feel for the ebb and flow of melody in the central Canzone: Not even wailing fire trucks on nearby Michigan Avenue could mar his concentration. His fingerwork was incisive without degenerating into pounding, and the torrent of pianistic energy he unleashed in the explosive, toccata-like finale kicked up tremendous excitement. Let's have him back.”

–Chicago Tribune

"Closing the program was Mr. Bax’s tastefully enhanced interpretation of “La Valse” by Ravel: less mordant than richly opulent, rising from Stygian gloom into a gaudy efflorescence, with glissandos that whistled as if no touch were involved."

–New York Times

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Biography

Alessio Bax is acclaimed for his exceptional lyricism and technique, recognized as “among the most remarkable pianists” by Gramophone. He gained fame by winning First Prizes at the Leeds and Hamamatsu International Piano Competitions and is now a renowned as both a recitalist, and chamber musician. Bax has collaborated as a concerto soloist with over 150 orchestras.

In the 2025/26 season, Alessio performs with the Philharmonischen Staatsorchester Mainz and with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and he debuts with the Gulbenkian Orchestra. In the US, his appears with Tucson Symphony Orchestra, Billings Symphony Orchestra, Nashville Symphony, Oregon Symphony Orchestra, Sarasota Symphony Orchestra, Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra, Jacksonville Symphony, and Minnesota Symphony Orchestra.

Alessio is an establish name in the US, having performed with New York Philharmonic, Dallas Symphony, St Louis Symphony, Boston Symphony, Baltimore Symphony Orchestras, Pacific Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Wichita Falls Symphony Orchestra, Plano Symphony Orchestra, North Carolina Symphony Orchestra, Utah Symphony Orchestra, Boulder Phil, Cleveland Orchestra, amongst many others. In Europe, he has performed with the Berlin Philharmonic, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonie Südwestfalen, Ulster Orchestra Belfast, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, and Szczecin Philharmonic.

He has performed with prominent conductors including Marin Alsop, Sir Simon Rattle, Sir Andrew Davis, Fabio Luisi, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Jaap van Zweden, Jacek Kaspszyk and Jonathan Nott.

An active chamber musician, he has toured the US with flautist Emmanuel Pahud, and he toured Japan and Taiwan alongside violinist Daishin Kashimoto. He has performed at multiple festivals, including Seattle Chamber Music Festival, Salon-de-Provence, Le Pont in Japan, Great Lakes, Verbier, Ravinia and Music@Menlo, and he regularly performs at the CMS in New York.

Alessio’s discography includes multiple albums for Signum Classics. These include Beethoven’s Hammerklavier and Moonlight Sonatas 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; Alessio Bax plays Brahms; Bach Transcribed and Rachmaninov: Preludes & Melodies – recordings respectively named Editor’s Choice, Recording of the Month, and Critics’ Choice by Gramophone, MusicWeb International, and American Record Guide. Most recently on Signum Classics, he recorded two discs; a new solo recital album, and a four hands/two pianos disc of French music with Lucille Chung. Recorded for Warner Classics, his Baroque Reflections album was named “Editor’s Choice” by Gramophone.

Since 2017, he has been the Artistic Director of the Incontri in Terra di Siena Festival, a Summer Music Festival in Tuscany. A Steinway artist, he lives in New York City with pianist Lucille Chung and their daughter, Mila, and teaches at Boston’s New England Conservatory.

 
William BurtonPiano