Martha Argerich & Friends: Live from Lugano Festival 2012;

EMI Classics is pleased to release the latest installment of highlights from the Martha Argerich Project at the Lugano Festival. This is the tenth annual 3-CD set celebrating the musical fruits of a project in which young artists join seasoned performers, including Martha Argerich herself, to explore wide-ranging chamber music and orchestral repertoire, both well known and rarely heard. The collection, recorded in the summer of 2012, is being released in anticipation of the Festival's 2013 season in June.

As a chamber music event which celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2011, this series has become a laboratory that gives guest artists a chance to prove themselves not only in well-known masterpieces but also in rarely performed repertoire. Live at Lugano Festival 2012 welcomes back mainly familiar names from the previous Live releases including Virgin Classics' inimitable violin and cello soloist brothers, Renaud and Gautier Capuçon. The 3-CD set includes Prokofiev s Sonata No. 2in D featuring Renaud Capucon as well as Brahms Variations on a Theme by Haydn for Two Pianos featuring Argerich and Nicholas Angelich.

Few artists have nurtured and promoted emerging young musicians with the level of personal commitment shown by Martha Argerich. In the process, she has created inspired and inspirational chamber music partnerships mixing established and up-and-coming artists. A legend in her own lifetime for her technical mastery and passionate artistry, Argerich possesses an infectious spirit that has fired her own performances and partnerships as well as those of her colleagues and protégés.