An Evening with Emanuel Ax

6:30PM – FREE PRE-CONCERT TALK! Join us in the Performance Hall to learn more about the program.

Few composers capture the full spectrum of human emotion like Johannes Brahms. In this powerful program, the Charleston Symphony explores two of his most compelling works. Grammy-Award winning, internationally celebrated pianist Emanuel Ax performs the dramatic Piano Concerto No. 1, a work of sweeping orchestral power and profound lyric beauty. The evening concludes with Brahms’ Symphony No. 3, a symphony filled with warmth, longing, and quiet intensity. Together, these masterpieces reveal Brahms at his most passionate, poetic, and unforgettable.

Much-admired conductor Carlos Miguel Prieto, the music director of the North Carolina Symphony, will debut with the CSO at this concert. Prieto was described by The Times (London) as “a dynamic presence on the podium” in 2023.

MORE ON THE MUSIC & ARTISTS:

• You can listen to a recording of Emanuel Ax performing Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on CD or your favorite streaming service HERE. 
• Among his many accomplishments and accolades, Ax is a Grammy-winning artist, known for his collaborations with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and violinist Isaac Stern. He also contributed to an International Emmy Award-winning BBC documentary commemorating the Holocaust.
• “Prieto was a dynamic presence on the podium, conducting with vigor and tremendous enthusiasm.” —The Times, London, August 2023, of the conductor’s BBC Proms performance.
• In 2023, Prieto made his hugely successful BBC Proms debut at Royal Albert Hall and, in 2024, at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Musical America recognized him as the 2019 Conductor of the Year.
• “I say without exaggerating that this work surpasses his first two symphonies; if not, perhaps, in grandeur and powerful conception—then certainly in—beauty,” Antonín Dvořák said of Brahms’s Third Symphony.

PROGRAM

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15

1. Maestoso
2. Adagio
3. Rondo: Allegro non troppo       

INTERMISSION

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Symphony No. 3 in F Major, Op. 90

1. Allegro con brio
2. Andante
3. Poco allegretto
4. Allegro

ARTISTS

Carlos Miguel Prieto, Conductor
Emanuel Ax, Piano

LISTEN

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