Ginette
Born in Paris into a musical family, Ginette Neveu became a violinist and her brother Jean-Paul Neveu a classical pianist. She was also the grandniece of composer Charles-Marie Widor (1844–1937). A child prodigy, Ginette Neveu took lessons from her mother and made her solo debut at the age of seven with the Concerts Colonne in Paris. Her parents then decided to send her to study under Line Talluel, and after further studies with Jules Boucherit at the Paris Conservatory, she completed her training with instruction from George Enescu, Nadia Boulanger, and Carl Flesch.
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Ginette Neveu gave her last concert on October 20, 1949. A week later, on October 27, she and her brother boarded an Air France flight en route to another series of concert engagements. All 48 passengers on board the flight, including the famous French boxing champion Marcel Cerdan, died when the plane flew into a mountain after two failed attempts to make a landing at the São Miguel Island airport in the Azores. It has been said that Ginette Neveu's body was found still clutching her Stradivarius in her arms. During the return of bodies to France, Neveu's coffin was confused with that of another victim, Amélie Ringler. The funeral for Ringler had taken place before the error was discovered. On 28 November, Neveu's brother-in-law identified her remains in the coffin disinterred from the graveyard in Bantzenheim.
Edith Piaf wrote of Neveu in her autobiography, The Wheel of Fortune: "I would have traveled thousands of miles to hear the great Ginette Neveu..."