Martha Argerich — pianist with roots in the Russian Empire
Martha Argerich was born María Martha Argerich in Buenos Aires on 5 June 1941, the daughter of Juan Manuel Argerich and Juana Heller, both economists. Her father's family was of Catalan descent and had been in Argentina since the eighteenth century. Her connection to the Russian Empire runs through her mother.
Juana Heller's parents were Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire who settled in Colonia Villa Clara, in the province of Entre Ríos, one of the agricultural colonies established by Baron Maurice de Hirsch and the Jewish Colonization Association. Spanish-language sources describe the family as Russian or Ukrainian Jews who had left after the pogroms; the town they came from is not recorded. Juana was born in Villa Clara and, since the colony had no secondary school, went to Buenos Aires at eleven to live with her grandmother. Argerich told the Jewish community association AMIA in 1998 that her mother was Jewish and asked to be included in its book on Jewish-Argentine musicians.
She began playing the piano before she was three, took lessons from Vicente Scaramuzza at five, and made her concert debut at eight with Beethoven's First Piano Concerto. In 1955 Juan Perón appointed her parents to posts at the Argentine embassy in Vienna so that she could study in Europe, and she worked for eighteen months with Friedrich Gulda, later also with Nikita Magaloff, Madeleine Lipatti, Stefan Askenase and Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. In 1957, at sixteen, she won the Busoni and Geneva competitions within three weeks of each other.
After her first commercial recording in 1960 and a period away from the platform, she won the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 1965 and made her American debut at Lincoln Center that year. Her repertoire is strong in Russian music, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky among it, and she has worked with Mstislav Rostropovich, Mischa Maisky, Gidon Kremer and Mikhail Pletnev. Her three Grammy Awards include one for Prokofiev's Cinderella arranged for two pianos with Pletnev.
In later years she has given priority to chamber music, became general director of a festival in her name in Beppu, Japan, directed her own project in Lugano from 2002 to 2016, and lent her name to a piano competition in Buenos Aires. She received the Praemium Imperiale in 2005 and Kennedy Center Honors in 2016.
"Her maternal grandparents emigrated from the Russian Empire to Argentina and settled in Colonia Villa Clara, one of Baron de Hirsch's Jewish agricultural colonies in Entre Ríos, where her mother was born."
Migration storyTracing the roots — Russian Empire (maternal grandparents; town not documented) - settled in Colonia Villa Clara, Entre Ríos
Her maternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire who settled in Colonia Villa Clara, Entre Ríos; Spanish-language sources describe the family as Ukrainian Jewish. Her mother, Juana Heller, grew up in that family; no town of origin is documented.
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Russian Empire (maternal grandparents; town not documented) - settled in Colonia Villa Clara, Entre Ríos. At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.
A career defined by ambition
"I play each concert as if it's the last. Because one day it will be."