Star pianist Emanuel Ax to perform at Green Music Center

Although he is a man of few words, veteran pianist Emanuel Ax always chooses each one wisely, hitting just the right note of modesty, with a sprinkling of common sense and self-deprecating wit.

“Piano playing is difficult, and making things sound good is hard,” Ax said in a phone interview from his home on the Upper West Side of New York. “You have to make it sound like the music is as good as it is. All I can do is keep practicing ... that’s my job.”

Although he may be too humble to say so himself, Ax is widely admired as one of the world’s greatest pianists. His hard work pays off with dazzling keyboard performances that roll off his fingers with loving and exquisite sensitivity.

“His greatness, his overwhelming authority as musician, technician and probing intellect emerges quickly as he plays,” Los Angeles Times reporter Daniel Cariaga wrote about him in 2001. “Within minutes, we are totally captured by his intensity and pianistic achievement.”

Earlier this month, Ax kicked off the New Year by joining the New York Philharmonic in New York for a world premiere of HK Gruber’s jazzy Piano Concerto. He will perform a piano recital of works by Schubert and Chopin at the Green Music Center’s Weill Hall at 7:30 p.m. Friday as part of a three-week tour to Canada, California and Seattle.

“It’s my first time at the Green Music Center,” said Ax, who performed at the Burbank Center for the Arts with the Santa Rosa Symphony in 1997. “So I’m looking forward to that.”

Born in Lvov, Poland, Ax moved to Winnipeg, Canada, with his family as a young boy. They then moved to New York, where he studied at the Juilliard School with Polish-American pianist Mieczylaw Munz and graduated from Columbia University with a degree in French.

After his debut in the Young Concert Artists Series, Ax started amassing an impressive number of awards, including the first Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition in 1974 and the coveted Avery Fisher Prize in 1979.

Although he is known for playing the traditional repertoire of Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms, Ax also has been an enthusiastic supporter of contemporary composers, from Austrian HK Gruber to Americans John Adams, Christopher Rouse and Bright Sheng.

In the world of chamber music, Ax has played with many of the top talents, including cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinist Jaime Laredo and the late Isaac Stern. Since 1990, he has served as a teacher on the faculty of the Juilliard School.

He is married to pianist Yoko Nozaki, and the couple have raised two, grown children: Joe, 38, a news reporter for Reuters in New York; and Sarah, 33, a sports marketer.

We caught up with Ax during the holidays, when he was practicing four hours a day for his upcoming tour.

Q: What first attracted you to the piano?

A: I think it was having a little upright at home, and my parents wanting me to study. My dad was a good amateur singer.

Q: Were there any specific pianists who influenced you as a young man?

A: I lived in New York from the age of 12 and heard almost everybody. All the big names - (Arthur) Rubinstein and (Vladimir) Horowitz and (Rudolf) Serkin.

Q: What is the most challenging aspect of playing the piano?

A: There are so many challenges ... in a way, the piano is the easiest instrument because you walk up and put your hands down, and you’re playing. And yet the hardest, because there’s so much we have to think about and so much responsibility. Nothing is easy. I’m 67. I’m hoping not to give up yet.

Q: Let’s talk about your upcoming recital program of Schubert and Chopin works. What are the contrasts and the moods?

A: The first half is about the way these two composers explored the impromptu. They are in ABA form, very well organized, with a start and a middle and then they go back. The four Schubert Impromptus make a kind of a sonata. The Chopin (Impromptus) are more separate and on their own, but very inventive and beautiful music.

Then you need something short of Schubert’s (Kavierstucke No. 2 in E-flat Major) and something long of Chopin’s (Sonata No. 3 in B minor) for the second half.

Some of the music is introspective, and some of it is more in your face. The Third Sonata is a virtuoso and grand piece. I will eventually wind up playing the program at Carnegie Hall in April. So it’s a work in progress.

Q: Is there an era of music that you identify with?

A: I play a lot of what one would call German classical music - Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, Brahms. That’s all stuff that I like a lot. Some people play Russian music, and I love to hear it, but I’m not good at playing it.

Q: What do you like about contemporary music?

A: It’s very exciting if someone writes a piece that you’re involved with at the beginning, and it turns out to be a wonderful piece. You’d like to think that music is a living thing, of course. Even art museums have pictures by people who are alive, so we should be doing the same thing.

Q: What piece of music - and what musician - would you take to a desert island?

A: I couldn’t pick one. I’d need a whole iPod. Certainly something by Brahms, but I’d want other stuff, too. My longest relationship is obviously with my friend Yo-Yo Ma. We’ve been working together for over 40 years, so if I had to pick one person to play music with, he’d be at the top of that list.

Q: If you could have chosen another profession, what would it be?

A: I’m really not good for anything else. It’s kind of hopeless. I suppose I’d be a high school French teacher.

Q: How do you like teaching at Juilliard?

A: The kids are so gifted and brilliant now, and it’s fun to see them. I learn a lot through them, and it’s very helpful for me because I learn to play a lot of things. And some become really good friends.

Staff writer Diane Peterson can be reached at 521-5287 or diane.peterson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @dianepete56.