1. Magdeleine Brard, known as Magda Brard, was a French pianist.
11 Facts About Magdeleine Brard
1. 2.
Magda Marie Anna Brard was born in Pontivy, Brittany, the daughter of Alfred Brard, a businessman and politician.
3.
Magdeleine Brard was a prize-winning student at the Paris Conservatoire, under Alfred Cortot.
4.
Magdeleine Brard toured in the United States as a pianist in 1919, sponsored by the French ministry of fine arts.
5.
Magdeleine Brard was possibly the youngest female soloist ever with the Metropolitan Opera when she played there at age 15.
6.
Magdeleine Brard made piano roll recordings of works by Liszt, Chopin, Schumann, Scriabin, Chabrier, Arensky, Massenet, Faure, and Saint-Saens in the 1920s, and performed at New York's Hippodrome in 1925.
7.
Magdeleine Brard played for Benito Mussolini at his Villa Torlonia in 1926, while she was pregnant with her first child.
8.
Magdeleine Brard was director of the "Accademia della musica" from 1933 to 1943.
9.
Magdeleine Brard was arrested in 1945, but freed after intervention from French diplomats, and returned to Paris after the war.
10.
Magdeleine Brard taught Italian in a private school later in life.
11.
Magdeleine Brard first married in 1920, to Edmondo Michele Borgo, a wealthy Italian businessman.