Yara Bernette

Brazilian pianist Yara Bernette was born Bernette Epstein in Boston (USA) on 14 March 1920 to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents. The family moved to São Paulo when Bernette was six months old, and she grew up and spent most of her life in Brazil.

She played in Europe and the USA, was encouraged by Rubinstein and Arrau, and recorded for Deutsche Grammophon. She also taught for twenty years at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg in Germany, where she was chair of the piano department, and afterwards in Brazil.

Yara Bernette died from a heart attack on 30 March 2002 in São Paulo, aged eighty-two.