Born in Buenos Aires, Martha Argerich rose to international prominence when she won First Prize at the 7th International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 1965. One of the world’s most brilliant pianists, she is highly regarded for her interpretations of the virtuoso piano literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Her broad repertoire includes works by Bach, Bartók, Beethoven, Messiaen, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Debussy, Ravel, Franck, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky.

From the very beginning, Barenboim possessed a musicality that touched people directly without being bound to rigid concepts. He gave his debut at the age of ten in Vienna and Rome. At the age of eleven he took part in a conducting course led by Igor Markevitch in Salzburg, where he met and played for Wilhelm Furtwängler in 1954. The charismatic German conductor is, along with Sir John Barbirolli, Barenboim’s role model. As a conductor, Barenboim exudes a greatness that critics have attempted to characterize with the words “intelligence and feeling” or “spontaneity and boundlessness.”

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PROGRAM
FRANZ SCHUBERT
Symphony No. 7 in B minor, D. 759 – "Unfinished"
PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 1 in B flat minor, Op. 23
WITOLD LUTOSŁAWSKI
Concerto for Orchestra