Internationally renowned pianist and recent winner of Musical America Awards’ ‘2026 Artist of the Year’ EMANUEL AX to perform at Nocturne XXIII, MASNO’s annual gala, on Sunday, October 25, 2026
Our 2026 Nocturne gala fundraiser, again held at the Ritz-Carlton New Orleans, promises to be another unforgettable evening! This beautiful celebration of the piano offers the opportunity to hear one of the world’s greatest pianists in an intimate concert setting while gathering with other music lovers and musicians in support of programs that help educate and nurture young pianists. In addition to Mr. Ax’s full concert performance, Nocturne will include a festive champagne reception and a multi-course seated dinner.
TICKETS go on sale March 1, 2026.
PROGRAM details coming soon!
About the Artist
Born to Polish parents in what is today Lviv, Ukraine, Emanuel Ax moved to Winnipeg, Canada, with his family when he was a young boy. Mr. Ax made his New York debut in the Young Concert Artists Series, and in 1974 won the first Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition in Tel Aviv. In 1975 he won the Michaels Award of Young Concert Artists, followed four years later by the Avery Fisher Prize. Emanuel Ax was recently named the 2026 Musical America Artist of the Year.
In recognition of the 50th anniversary of his first appearance with the orchestra, the 2025/26 season begins with the Philadelphia Orchestra in Carnegie Hall on October 31. Fall also includes an Asian tour that will take him to Tokyo, Seoul and Hong Kong. Following the world premiere at Tanglewood in summer 2025, the concerto written for him by John Williams will have its Boston Symphony subscription debut in January with the NY premiere one month later with New York Philharmonic. As a guest artist he will return to orchestras in Dallas, St. Louis, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Charleston, Madison, Naples and New Jersey. In recital he can be heard in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Santa Barbara, Des Moines, Cedar Falls, Schenectady and Princeton. An extensive European tour will include concerts in Munich, Prague, Berlin, Rome and Torino.
Mr. Ax has been a Sony Classical exclusive recording artist since 1987 and following the success of the Brahms Trios with Kavakos and Ma, the trio launched an ambitious, multi-year project to record all the Beethoven Trios and Symphonies arranged for trio of which the first three discs have been released. He has received GRAMMY® Awards for the second and third volumes of his cycle of Haydn’s piano sonatas. He has also made a series of GRAMMY-winning recordings with Yo-Yo Ma of the Beethoven and Brahms sonatas for cello and piano. In the 2004/05 season Mr. Ax contributed to an International EMMY® Award-Winning BBC documentary commemorating the Holocaust that aired on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. In 2013, Mr. Ax’s recording Variations received the Echo Klassik Award for Solo Recording of the Year (19th Century Music/Piano).
Mr. Ax is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and holds honorary doctorates of music from Skidmore College, New England Conservatory of Music, Yale University, and Columbia University. For more information about Mr. Ax’s career, please visit EmanuelAx.com.
NOCTURNE XXIII is presented with support from: The Gauthier Family Foundation, Steinway & Sons, Steinway Piano Gallery of New Orleans, The Ritz-Carlton New Orleans, WWNO Classical Network
For information regarding Sponsorships for NOCTURNE XXIII, please contact Cara McCool Woolf at director@masno.org or call +1 504 715-0818.