Emanuel Ax has spent 50 years making the piano seem inevitable — each phrase arriving as if shaped by something other than effort. All the Music in the World, the new documentary by Joseph Levy, turns the camera on the other side of that certainty: stage fright, the accumulated weight of expectation, and the question every performing artist eventually faces.
About the Show
Co-presented by Tanglewood, the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, and DOC NYC, this is the co-world premiere of Levy’s 83-minute feature, filmed over three years (2023–2026). The film follows Ax through his 50th year as a concert pianist, a milestone framed by its central narrative: his preparation for the world premiere of John Williams’ newly commissioned Piano Concerto, performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Andris Nelsons at Tanglewood in July 2025. Williams drew the concerto’s jazz inflections from Art Tatum, Bill Evans, and Oscar Peterson; Ax, who has spent five decades developing a chamber musician’s sense of dialogue through his long collaborations with Yo-Yo Ma and Leonidas Kavakos, brought that quality to the premiere.
The film also features Itzhak Perlman, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Alisa Weilerstein, and Rafael Payare. Director Joseph Levy came to the project through a specific personal memory: as a child, he watched Ax perform with Yo-Yo Ma at Lincoln Center; 35 years later, he was behind the camera. His earlier documentary Spinning Plates earned festival recognition and a theatrical release. Levy has framed All the Music in the World around what he describes as “the joy of making music and the pressure of living up to his own expectations,” and the film examines that tension through candid passages on stage fright and the contemplation of stepping away. Following the screening, Ax and Levy will take questions from the audience.
Ax’s connection to the Berkshires gives this premiere a particular resonance. A multiple Grammy Award winner and Musical America’s Artist of the Year for 2026, he has performed at Tanglewood more than 100 times since his 1978 debut with the BSO, and divides his time between New York City and West Stockbridge. At 76, Musical America describes him as combining “the pianistic insight of an old master with the freshness and modesty of a newcomer.”
Venue & Logistics
The Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center in Great Barrington, a 681-seat theater, has become a destination for classical audiences from across the capital region and the broader Berkshires summer circuit. The screening begins at 7:00 p.m. A second screening is scheduled at the DOC NYC festival in November 2026, but the talkback with Ax and Levy is specific to Sunday’s premiere.
Tickets
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