Once in the studio, Di Meola and Agutin expected peak performance from every participant. They laid the foundations together, and then they set to work separately in New York and Moscow on polishing the songs. The recording took over a year. "We gave a lot of attention to each individual number," Agutin relates. They were very critical in selecting which songs should go on the album. They came up with ten memorable tracks in which every note has its place. And yet: there is always room for development, at least according to Agutin. At every concert, he is on the lookout for new aspects of his material. A concert makes more of an impression than any CD, he insists. A show in Berlin last month proved his assertion. In Germany's multicultural capital, he and Di Meola introduced "Cosmopolitan Life" to its first live audience. The evening also featured some of Di Meola's own compositions, enhancing his reputation as one of the truly great guitarists. In it's first week of release the album entered the German charts. After studying at Berklee School of music, Al Di Meola was invited by Chick Corea to join "Return to Forever", winning a Grammy at the age of only 19 with this legendary ensemble. He released a large number of solo albums, adding to his reputation in the 1980s in a trio with, Paco de Lucia and John McLaughlin. He went on to link up with Stanley Clarke and Jean-Luc Ponty in 1995. His solo CD "Infinite Desire" spent over three months of 1999 in the Billboard Contemporary Jazz Charts, climbed to Number 3 in the German jazz charts and was at the top of the Italian jazz charts for eight weeks. The follow-up albums enjoyed similar success with the most recent "Flesh on Flesh" receiving highly appreciative reviews in 2002. His records have sold more than nine million copies. Leonid Agutin is another darling of the critics. Born in Moscow, he studied piano there and began writing songs in 1991; his 1994 solo debut "The Barefoot Fella" made him a star in his homeland. He was named Singer of the Year in Russia and received further awards for Song and Album of the Year. Six more CDs followed, culminating in Agutin headlining at all the major Russian venues and appearing on every major TV show. In his native land alone, he has sold more than ten million albums. Since 1996, he regularly tours the USA. The Americans love him now as much as his own countrymen do. No wonder: Agutin is a world citizen, seeking to build cultural bridges with his music. He should find that easy enough in "Cosmopolitan Life" with Al Di Meola at his side - together, the pair scale the musical peaks.