Ginette Neveu (11 August 191928 October 1949) was a French classical violinist. She was killed in a plane crash at the age of 30. Early life Neveu was born on 11 August 1919 in Paris into a musical family. Her brother Jean-Paul became a classical pianist (and her eventual accompanist) and the composer and organist Charles-Marie Widor was their great-uncle. Neveu's mother was her first teacher. Neveu made her solo debut at the age of seven with Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1 at the Salle Gaveau in Paris. In the same year she performed Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor with the Colonne Orchestra under Gabriel Pierné. Her parents then decided to send her to study under Line Talluel. Aged nine, she won first prize at the École Supérieure de Musique and the City of Paris Prix d'Honneur. After further studies with Jules Boucherit at the Conservatoire de Paris, she completed her training with instruction from George Enescu (who had been Yehudi Menuhin's teacher), Nadia Boulanger and Carl Flesch. Flesch offered to teach her without charge after hearing her in the Vienna International Violin Competition, at which, aged 12, she was placed fourth out of 250 entrants. The Vienna Neues Tageblatt wrote, "If you close your eyes, you think you are listening to the vigorous playing of a man and not that of a little girl in a white frock." Career In 1935, aged 15, Neveu achieved worldwide celebrity status when she won the Henryk Wieniawski Violin Competition. Unable to afford the cost of travel to Warsaw, the family was helped by Flesch, who paid for the trip. In the preliminary round (of 180 competitors) Neveu was placed first, 26 points ahead of David Oistrakh, and in the final again she came in first. She was 15, Oistrakh 27 at the time. Henri Temianka was placed third. Neveu was immediately signed to an extensive touring contract which over the next two years saw her give solo performances at the leading concert halls of Germany, Poland, the Soviet Union, the United States and Canada. Neveu's international career was interrupted by World War II, during which she gave few concerts, nearly all in France. Many invitations to play in Germany were turned down. She was finally able to make her London debut in 1946. She recorded Sibelius's Violin Concerto at Abbey Road Studios in the same year. Her brother Jean-Paul usually accompanied