Pressler and American Quartet open season

The remarkable Menahem Pressler, pianist and founding member of the Beaux Arts Trio, returns to open the 78th season of Chamber Music Cincinnati Tuesday in Corbett Auditorium. Pressler will join the American String Quartet for Dvorak’s tuneful Piano Quintet. The program includes Mozart’s Quartet in C Major, K. 465, "Dissonance," and Alban Berg's Quartet No. 3.

(The photo is of a concert earlier this month at IU, with Alex Kerr, former concertmaster of the Cincinnati Symphony now on the IU faculty; with Mark Kaplan, cellist Sharon Robinson and Atar Arad. With thanks to Indiana University)

As a teenager, Pressler fled the Nazis from his native Germany to Israel, barely escaping the Holocaust. Pressler’s career has spanned six decades, beginning with winning the 1946 Debussy Piano Competition and soon after, making his American debut with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

In 1955, Pressler made his first appearance with the Beaux Arts Trio, a chamber group that would record more than 50 albums and become the benchmark for piano trios worldwide. The trio, now with violinist Daniel Hope and cellist Antonio Meneses, is celebrating its final season.

The same year, Pressler began teaching at Indiana University. Now an IU Distinguished Professor, the 83-year-old artist teacher still presides over a busy piano studio. On Thursday, he will receive the Performing Artist and Arts Educator Award in the 2007 Governor's Arts Awards ceremony to be held on the Bloomington campus. (Others being honored are saxophonist Jamey Aebersold and choral conductor Henry Leck.)

The Chamber Music Cincinnati concert is 8 p.m. Tuesday in Corbett Auditorium. A preconcert lecture begins at 7 p.m. Tickets: $25; $10 students. CCM students and students 18 and under are free. 859-581-6877, www.cincychamber.org.