Argerich at 85: Two Nights in Shanghai, Three Concerts in Taiwan

Tickets for Martha Argerich's two Shanghai nights in October open tomorrow at 2pm. Prices run VIP 1880, then 1580, 1280, 880, 580 and 380 yuan, with the 380 tier capped at four per buyer and excluded from the member discount.

Following those two dates outward turns up something worth knowing. She comes to East Asia twice this autumn. Two nights in Shanghai in October, three concerts in Taiwan in November. The two are almost separate projects.

The Shanghai nights

24 and 25 October at the Oriental Concert Hall, 7.30pm both evenings. Six musicians on stage. Argerich, Maxim Vengerov and Steven Isserlis lead; the other three are pianists Theodosia Ntokou and Marios Papadopoulos, and violist Lyda Chen-Argerich, who is Argerich's daughter.

The two programmes do not overlap at all, so hearing both means buying both. The first night opens with Liszt's Réminiscences de Don Juan, puts Mahler's early A minor Piano Quartet in the middle, and closes on Beethoven's "Kreutzer". The second opens with the Shostakovich Concertino for two pianos, passes through Fauré, Kreisler and Piazzolla, and ends on the two-piano La valse.

Argerich plays in nine of the thirteen pieces. All nine are ensemble works. Not one is solo. The full programme with the players for each piece is on the concert page.

The Taiwan concerts

10 November at the Weiwuying Concert Hall in Kaohsiung, 12 November at the National Concert Hall in Taipei, 15 November at the Pingtung Performing Arts Center. The presenter is New Aspect. According to Taiwan's Central News Agency this is Argerich's first visit to Taiwan in 25 years, the last being November 2001. She is 85.

The Taiwan roster barely overlaps with Shanghai. Only Ntokou and Lyda Chen-Argerich travel to both, and Chen-Argerich also organises and conducts there. The rest are pianist Dong Hyek Lim, violinists Michael Guttman, Yossif Ivanov and Wei Jing-Yi, cellist Zhao Jing, and her grandson David Chen Sverdlov, with the Evergreen Symphony Orchestra. The repertoire changes too, to the Poulenc Concerto for two pianos, Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and the Mendelssohn Double Concerto.

What her touring actually looks like

Laid side by side, the word "tour" fits badly. A soloist's tour usually carries one programme through many cities. Argerich works the other way round. The people change, the repertoire changes, and a group is assembled wherever she lands. Ntokou's own 2026 calendar shows the pattern clearly, running through Paris in April, Hanoi in July, Oxford at the end of July, Ohrid and Carloforte in August, Plovdiv and Thessaloniki in September, Bremen and Belgrade in October, then Shanghai and Taiwan. The collaborators rotate in batches.

The programme sheet says the rest of it. Argerich stopped building her calendar around solo recitals a long time ago, and her live work is now mostly concertos and chamber music. Across the two Shanghai nights she takes nine of thirteen pieces and never plays alone. That has little to do with her age; it has been her way of choosing work since the 1980s.

How far we verified this

The Shanghai dates, venue and number of performances can be checked against the Shanghai Municipal Administration of Culture and Tourism permit, number 沪文旅许[2026]4116, approved 29 July, which registers six performers and matches the six musicians named above. The programme and prices come from the venue's 5 August announcement, and the prices were checked a second time by hand. Ntokou's own website independently lists the same two Shanghai dates at the Oriental Art Center, presented by China Music Series.

For the three Taiwan concerts we hold no first-hand ticketing data; the dates and roster follow the Central News Agency report and New Aspect's public pages. We have found no mainland China dates beyond Shanghai. If any appear, we will add them.