SEASON 2Episode 7: Variety Show
Coming in September 2025!
Garrick Ohlsson and Ben Laude explore Chopin’s Mozart Variations, the ever-popular Andante spianato, and other stand-alone solo & ensemble works.
Featuring
Kate Liu
3rd Prize, 2015 International Chopin Competition
Pianist Kate Liu has garnered international recognition, notably winning the Third Prize at the 17th International Fryderyk Chopin Competition in Warsaw, Poland. She also received the Best Mazurka Prize, as well as the Audience Favorite Prize awarded by the Polish public through Polish National Radio. Since then she has toured internationally, performing at some of the world’s most renowned venues and collaborating with orchestras around the globe. In 2025, she released her debut album featuring Beethoven and Brahms sonatas with Orchid Classics.
Emanuel Ax
Grammy Award-Winning Concert Pianist
Born to Polish parents in what is today Lviv, Ukraine, Emanuel 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. Mr. Ax has been a Sony Classical exclusive recording artist since 1987 and 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. 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.
Alek Laskowski
Spokesman of the Fryderyk Chopin Institute
Alek Laskowski is the spokesman for the Fryderyk Chopin National Institute and collaborator of Radio Dwójka, where he hosts his own program "Opera Themes". From 2013 to 2019, he presented monthly programs devoted to Polish music on the Russian Radio Orfiej. Author of several books on music and many translations.
Critic’s Corner
Jed Distler on Great Recordings of Chopin’s Miscellaneous Works
Jed Distler is a composer, pianist, music writer, and arts presenter based in New York. He is the official Gramophone blogger for the International Chopin Competition.