Emanuel Ax was born on 8 June 1949 in Lviv, then in the Soviet Union, to Polish Jewish parents who had survived the Holocaust. The family moved to Warsaw and then to Winnipeg before settling in New York, where from the age of twelve he studied with Mieczysław Munz at the Juilliard School. He won first prize at the inaugural Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in Tel Aviv in 1974, having previously placed at the Chopin, Vianna da Motta and Queen Elisabeth competitions. He has taught at the Juilliard School since 1990.

Ax is one of the most established American concert pianists of the past half-century, with a long recording relationship with Sony Classical covering Haydn, Beethoven, Chopin, Brahms and Schoenberg. His chamber partnerships, particularly the long-running duo with the cellist Yo-Yo Ma and the trio with Ma and Isaac Stern, have produced several Grammy-winning recordings. He has premiered concertos and solo works by living composers including John Adams, Christopher Rouse and Hans Werner Henze. He appears regularly with the major American and European orchestras and at the Verbier and Tanglewood festivals.

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuel_Ax