Martha Argerich

Born in Buenos Aires in 1941, Martha Argerich made her concert debut at the age of eight with Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto. In 1955, she moved to Europe to study with Friedrich Gulda in Vienna. In 1957, she won both the Busoni Competition in Bolzano and the Geneva International Music Competition; even so, she continued her studies, working with Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli and Stefan Askenase before beginning her international career in 1965 when she won First Prize at the Chopin Competition in Warsaw. Argerich has appeared with the world’s leading orchestras, performing a repertoire ranging from Bach to Bartók. Today, she enjoys legendary status and is widely regarded as one of the greatest pianists of all time. For some forty years, she has largely refrained from giving solo recitals, focusing instead on performances with orchestras and chamber music while also championing young artists. From 2002 to 2016, she curated her own festival in Lugano, Switzerland, and from 2018 to 2024 she led a similar project in Hamburg. Her collaborators have included Daniil Trifonov, Mischa Maisky, Gil Shaham, Maxim Vengerov, Stephen Kovacevich, and Daniel Barenboim. She has also worked regularly with Lahav Shani, in concerts in Tel Aviv, Vienna, Munich, and Dresden. Argerich’s recordings have received three Grammy Awards: in 1999 for her performances of concertos by Prokofiev and Bartók, in 2005 for a duo recording with Mikhail Pletnev, and in 2006 for Beethoven concertos with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and Claudio Abbado. She was awarded an Echo Klassik in 2014 for her interpretations of Mozart concertos, also with Abbado. The documentary Argerich, released in 2013 by her daughter Stéphanie, offers a film portrait of the pianist. Martha Argerich was honored with the Praemium Imperiale for her lifetime achievement in the fall of 2005, and in 2023 she was named a Commandeur de la Légion d’honneur by French President Emmanuel Macron.

Lucerne Festival (IMF) debut on 20 August 1969 as the soloist in Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto under Charles Dutoit.

April 2026