American Pianist Emanuel Ax Responds to Trump Policies

Ax has shared that he is “anxious about the direction that our present government is bent on”

In response to a recent New York Times article discussing major cuts to the State Department by the U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the GRAMMY Award-winning American pianist Emanuel Ax has shared his views on the trajectory of Trump’s new policies. 

“I am an immigrant whose parents were lucky enough to come from Eastern Europe to the United States six decades ago,” Ax wrote in an opinion piece to the editor. “To them and to so many of their compatriots, the U.S. was the promised land.

“I am an old citizen now — I have had the privilege of being an American for many years — but I am deeply depressed and anxious about the direction that our present government is bent on.”

“For so long, we have been a beacon of reason, generosity and hope,” Ax continued. “The hallmarks of our democracy are being undermined every day by this administration. I can only hope that enough lawmakers will come to their senses and return us to the country that we used to be.”

Born to Polish parents in what is today Lviv, Ukraine, Emanuel Ax moved to Canada with his family when he was a young boy. 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 the following years, he received the Michaels Award of Young Concert Artists and the Avery Fisher Prize.

His projects this season include a recording project and performances with Leonidas Kavakos and Yo-Yo Ma, as well as engagements with the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland and Philadelphia orchestras, the National, San Diego, Nashville, and Pittsburgh symphonies, and the Rochester Philharmonic. Ax has been a Sony Classical exclusive recording artist since 1987. 

Additionally, 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.