Martha Argerich is regarded as one of the world’s finest and leading pianists of our times. She is particularly highly regarded for her interpretations of the virtuoso piano literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Her exceptionally brilliant technique, emotional depth, and outstanding performances has won her an enthusiastic international following. Martha Argerich was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She began learning piano at the age of five with Vincenzo Scaramuzza. A child prodigy, she soon was giving public performances, before moving to Europe in 1955 to continue her education in London, Vienna and Switzerland, with Friedrich Gulda, Nikita Magaloff, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli and Stefan Askenase.
In 1957, she won the "Geneva International Music Competition" and the "Ferruccio Busoni" International Piano Competition and in 1965 she won the "Chopin International Piano Competition" in Warsaw. Martha Argerich has won three Grammy Awards for the concertos of Beethoven (with Claudio Abbado, 2006), Bartók and Prokofiev, and Prokofiev’s Cinderella for two pianos (with Mikhail Pletnev, 2005). In 2016, she was presented with the Kennedy Center Award by Barack Obama at the Kennedy Center Honors.
She was voted "Gramophone Artist of the Year", "Choc du Monde de la Musique" and "Sunday Times Record of the Year". She is the recipient of the "BBC Music Magazine Award" for her Shostakovich album on EMI (2007), and she has made numerous recordings for EMI, Sony, Warner, Philips, Teldec and Deutsche Grammophon. Since 1998, she has been Artistic Director of her festival "Argerich's Meeting Point" in Beppu, Japan. In 2002, she created her Festival "Progetto Martha Argerich" in Lugano, Switzerland and the "Martha Argerich Festival" in Hamburg, Germany. Martha Argerich together with her daughter Lyda Chen-Argerich have created the ARCH Music Academy (Argerich/Chen) in China.
