Renée Chemet
Renée Chemet standing at a microphone, from the George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress.
Born	Renée Henriette Joséphine Chemet (1887-01-09)January 9, 1887 Boulogne-sur-Seine
Died	January 2, 1977(1977-01-02) (aged 89) Paris
Nationality	French
Other names	Renée Chemet-Decreus (after marriage)
Occupation	violinist
Spouse	Camille Decreus

Renée Chemet (January 9, 1887 – January 2, 1977) was a French violinist.

Early life

Renée Henriette Joséphine Chemet was born in Boulogne-sur-Seine. She studied with Henri Berthelier at the Conservatoire de Paris, graduating in 1902.^[1]

Career

Chemet toured the world as a violinist for decades, playing a violin made by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini. In 1904, still a teenager, she was a soloist at the Proms concerts in London, under conductor Henry Wood.^[1] In 1907, she toured North America as a violinist with her husband, pianist Camille Decreus, in the company of Emma Calvé.^[2][3] "Madame Chemet is a violinist of great talent", explained a reviewer who heard her in Hamburg in 1911, "with great skill, splendid technique, and big (rather manly) tone. Her style of playing is eminently French; she sometimes overdoes it by forcing sentiment and cantilène."^[4]

During World War I, when travel was difficult, she gave benefit concerts and performed for the troops in France, and worked as a nurse's aide; she was awarded the Legion of Honour for her service.^[5]

After the war, Chemet was a soloist in Liverpool, Birmingham, Nottingham, Bradford, Cardiff, Edinburgh, and Glasgow in 1920.^[6] In the latter half of 1920, Chemet gave a number of joint recitals with the Russian tenor Vladimir Rosing.^[7] In New York, she played at Carnegie Hall in 1921, at Aeolian Hall in 1923,^[8] Town Hall in 1927,^[9] and at the Metropolitan Opera House in 1925 and 1928.^[10][11] Throughout the 1920s, she made many recordings,^[12][13] and appeared regularly on radio. "Radio paves the way," she told a New York Times interviewer in 1930. "It popularizes tunes, the great symphony orchestras, the talented singers and instrumental soloists that would be ignored without this medium."^[14] She played Maud Powell's violin^[15] on the radio in New York in 1925.^[16][17]

Chemet traveled through Hawaii to Japan in 1932, to perform with pianist Anca Seidlova and koto player Michio Miyagi.^[18][19][20] Later that year, she performed with the BBC Orchestra.^[21]

Personal life

Chemet married fellow French musician Camille Decreus in 1906.^[22] He died in 1939. She died in 1977, at age 89, in Paris.

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Renée Chemet.

• A 1909 portrait of Chemet with her violin, in the J. Willis Sayre Collection of Theatrical Photographs, University of Washington Libraries.
• A Renée Chemet recital program (1929), from an appearance at McMurry College in Abilene, Texas, in The Portal to Texas History.
• Emily Liz, "Great female violinists of the past" Violinist.com (December 27, 2010). A blog post including Chemet.