Jane Evrard

Jeanne Chevallier, spouse Jeanne Poulet, having taken from 1930 on the pseudonym Jane Evrard, (5 February 1893 – 4 November 1984), was a French musician. In 1930, she became the first woman conductor in France.[1]

Life

Born in Neuilly-Plaisance, she started playing the violin at the age of seven. She was admitted to the Conservatoire de Paris, in the violin class conducted by M. Lefort. She married the violinist Gaston Poulet in 1912. The couple then met the conductor Georges Rabani, who led the Red Concerts and conducted the orchestras of the Casino de Deauville and the Théâtre de l’Odéon. In 1913, they were commissioned by Pierre Monteux to take care of the Sacre du Printemps by Nijinsky. During the 1920s, when Gaston Poulet founded the Concerts Poulet, his wife was a violin teacher; they eventually split up.

In 1930, Jeanne Poulet founded her own orchestra, the Orchestre féminin de Paris,[2] composed of twenty-five female musicians. She then called herself "Jane Evrard"[3] and was the first French woman to become a conductor.[4] In the daily Excelsior, Émile Vuillermoz wrote

The initiative taken by Jane Evrard, an excellent violinist, accomplished musician and tireless worker, is intelligent and reasoned. Jane Evrard frankly poses the problem of female labour in ensemble music. Here is an honest and courageous gesture.

Her concert toured in France, Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands.

At the end of her life, after being evicted from her apartment, she lived in a retirement home of the Rossini Foundation.[5]

She died in Paris at age 91.

Sources
  • Website of Jane Evrard's grandson
  • BNF 13926901t

See also
  • Place Jane-Evrard

References
  1. Jane Evrard, la première femme chef d’orchestre en France on France Musique
  2. Orchestre féminin de Paris on Bnf
  3. In reference to the place known as Ville-Évrard, near her birthplace.
  4. Il était des femmes... cheffes d'orchestre ! on France Inter
  5. Rossini Foundation
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