I hope you have been able to attend some of the great concerts, plays, dance and musicals in our city this month. Coming up on Friday, pianist Emanuel “Manny” Ax is donating his time and talent to perform a benefit piano concert for the Ben Carlson-Berne Scholarship, 7:30 p.m. Friday March 24 in Corbett Theater at the School for Creative and Performing Arts.

Here’s an interesting phone interview that WGUC’s Elaine Diehl had with Ax about the concert. He has been performing in Cincinnati since 1976 or ’77, he says. He speaks about the support that he received as a young musician, and life on the road, post-Covid.

He’s also continuing his “Beethoven for Three” recordings with Yo-Yo Ma and Leonidas Kavakos, he tells Elaine. I’m enjoying the second in their series, which has Beethoven’s ‘Pastorale” Symphony No. 6 — arranged for piano trio by Shai Wosner. It’s a wonderful discovery. Take a listen here.

His program on Friday will be piano music by Schubert and Liszt.

You can learn more about the Ben Carleson-Berne Scholarship in my column for the Business Courier.

Tickets are available at bcbscholarship.org.