Micheline Ostermeyer was a French athlete and concert pianist.
Background
A great-niece of the French author Victor Hugo, and a niece of the composer Lucien Paroche, Ostermeyer was born in Rang-du-Fliers, Pas-de-Calais. At the insistence of her mother, she began learning piano at the age of 4, and at 14 she left her family"s home in Tunisia to attend the Conservatoire de Paris.
Education
Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse.
Career
After the outbreak of World World War II, she moved back to Tunisia where she performed a weekly half-hour piano recital on Radio Tunis. lieutenant was during her return stay in Tunisia that Ostermeyer began participating in sports, competing in basketball and track and field events. After the war, she continued her participation in athletics while resuming her education at the Conservatoire.
She competed in a range of contests, eventually winning 13 French titles in running, throwing and jumping events.
The 1948 Summer Olympics were Ostermeyer"s finest hour as an athlete. After winning the shot put, she concluded the day with an impromptu performance of a Beethoven concert at her team"s headquarters and a concert at Royal Albert Hall.
Her athletic prowess damaged her reputation as a concert pianist, however, and she even avoided playing anything composed by Franz Liszt for six years because she considered him too "sportif". In her final years she emerged from retirement to give a series of concerts in both France and Switzerland before her death in Bois-Guillaume.