THE American pianist Emanuel Ax will be making a rare appearance in the English Symphony Orchestra's final concert of its 2003 spring series.

The concert, on June 5, at 7.30pm, at the Forum, Malvern Theatres, will see him perform Brahms's Second Piano Concerto.

This will his first performance in Malvern and comes just before concerts with Andre Previn and the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican.

Acclaimed for his poetic lyricism and brilliant technique, Emanuel Ax is one of today's best known and most highly regarded musicians.

He first captured public attention in 1974 when, aged 25, he won the first Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition in Tel Aviv. Five years later he took the coveted Avery Fisher Prize in New York.

An RCA recording contract followed, and many of his discs have won top honours. One of the most recent has been of the Brahms concerto with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Bernard Haitink.

Devoted to chamber music, Emanuel Ax regularly performs duo recitals with cellist Yo-Yo Ma, their recordings together have earned three Grammy awards.

He has also received a Grammy for his Brahms Trio recording with Ma and Richard Stolzman.

Ax regularly plays quartets with Isaac Stern, Jaime Laredo and Yo-Yo Ma and for Sony they have recorded works by Brahms, Faure, Beethoven, Schumann and Mozart.

Emanuel Ax was born in Lvov, Poland, and began to study the piano at the age of six in Warsaw. When the family moved to north America in 1961 he continued his studies at the Juilliard School under Mieczylaw Munz. He lives in New York with his wife, the pianist Yoko Nazaki, and their two children.

The performance will be conducted by William Boughton and will also feature Beethoven's 7th Symphony. A pre-concert talk on the Brahms Concerto will be given by David Gaukroger in the Forum at 6.45pm

Tickets (£16, £22, £26) are available from Malvern Theatres box office on 01684 892277.