French pianist born in Thuir, Pyrénées-Orientales, on August 11, 1947, Catherine Collard was a pupil of Germaine Mounier and Jean Hubeau at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, where she won first prize for piano in 1964 and first prize for chamber music in 1966. Daughter of pianist André Collard, she took advanced lessons with Yvonne Lefébure and Yvonne Loriod, then formed a piano duo with Anne Queffélec. Unrelated to Jean-Philippe Collard, a pianist who graduated from the Paris Conservatoire at the same time, Catherine Collard went on to win numerous international competitions. She won first prize in the Claude Debussy and Olivier Messiaen competitions in 1969, the Prix de la Fondation de la vocation in 1970, and distinguished herself at the Viotti, Casella and Busoni competitions. Her repertoire, focused on Romanticism, Baroque and Classical music, was in fact much broader, encompassing the modern and contemporary periods, in addition to her skills as an accompanist. In 1970, in Royan, she gave the first performance of André Boucourechliev's Archipel 4, then went on to record Schumann pieces and chamber music with violinist Catherine Courtois for the Erato label. Appointed professor at the Saint-Maur Conservatory in 1976, Catherine Collard pursued her solo career on the Lyrinx label, recording pieces by Mozart, Franck's Quintet with Régis Pasquier and the Orlando Quartet, and Grieg's Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 2 with Michel Tabachnik. After teaming up with cellist Sonia Wieder-Atherton for Brahms' Sonatas for Cello and Piano (1991), she accompanied contralto Nathalie Stutzmann in two song recitals, followed by lieder cycles the following year. On October 10, 1993, Catherine Collard died of cancer at the age of 46.
