Word on the street: Asheville Symphony planning Mozart fest, will feature renowned pianist Ax

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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Word on the street is that the Asheville Symphony is planing a big-time Mozart festival in March 2015 with the renowned pianist Emanuel Ax. The short story of Ax, via wiki:

Emanuel Ax (born 8 June 1949) is a Grammy-winning American classical pianist. He is an internationally acclaimed performer, and a teacher on the faculty of the Juilliard School.

This would be a major coup for the Asheville Symphony, which announced its 2014-15 season earlier this month. Classical music fans will be thrilled. The Asheville Symphony has been on a roll recent, what with some nice exposure at a Moogfest concert and the February announcement of this gift:

The Asheville Symphony Orchestra has received a $610,000 gift to fund a three-year after-school pilot program that will use music education as a tool to teach life skills to school-aged children in underserved populations in the city of Asheville.
Funded by a gift from the Waterbury, Conn.-based Leever Foundation, the new program will be known as MusicWorks!. Youth participants in MusicWorks! will have the opportunity to gain crucial skills and values including academic achievement, self-expression, teamwork, personal responsibility, and engagement in their community

“Asheville has a great symphony, a vibrant community that supports arts and culture, and a community that really cares about its children,” said Tom Leever of the Leever Foundation, which also funded Bravo Waterbury, another El Sistema inspired program that has been operating successfully in Waterbury for two years. “The MusicWorks! Program closely follows the Leever Foundation mission, which is to create opportunities for children to fulfill their potential and become productive members of society.”