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The Schmooze

Virtuoso Pianist Martha Argerich Joins The Eagles and James Taylor for Kennedy Center Honors

This year’s list of Kennedy Center Honors winners mostly contains some familiar and not-all-that-surprising names. Among them, James Taylor, Al Pacino, Mavis Staples, and — for better or worse — The Eagles. But the most intriguing name on that list is 75-year-old Argentine pianist Martha Argerich. Kennedy Center president Deborah Rutter told the Washington Post that Argerich “ gives herself completely to the power of the music. She enters the music itself.” Described in The New York Times in 2008 as “a brilliant musician whose playing combines prodigious technique with uncanny musicality,” she is the granddaughter of Russian Jewish immgrants and was born in Buenos Aires. In 2013, she was the subject of the documentary “Bloody Daughter,” made by her daughter Stéphanie Argerich.

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