Yolanda Mero (30 August 188717 October 1963) was a Hungarian-American pianist, opera and theatre impresario, and philanthropist who supported destitute musicians.

Pianist

Yolanda Mero was born in Budapest

Budapest

Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...

, where she studied from the age of 8 at the National Conservatory with Augusta Rennebaum, a pupil of Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...

. She made her debut at age 15 with the Dresden Philharmonic, then toured the world for four years. She moved to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 with her family in 1900, first appearing in New York in 1909, with the Russian Symphony Orchestra.

A week after arriving in New York, she met Hermann Irion, an executive of the Steinway Piano company, and married him only four weeks later, on 16 December 1909.

In the US she played concertos under the baton of Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...

, Leopold Stokowski

Leopold Stokowski

Leopold Anthony Stokowski was a British-born, naturalised American orchestral conductor, well known for his free-hand performing style that spurned the traditional baton and for obtaining a characteristically sumptuous sound from many of the great orchestras he conducted.In America, Stokowski...

 and others. She later had a teaching post at her alma mater in Budapest.

Her verve and bravura, but also her wayward approach, were noted. In a review of her concert at New York's Aeolian Hall in January 1919, James Huneker

James Huneker

James Gibbons Huneker was an American music writer and critic.Huneker was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He studied piano in Europe under Leopold Doutreleau and audited the Paris piano class of Frédéric Chopin's pupil Georges Mathias. He came to New York City in 1885 and remained there...

 wrote that "... she transformed Chopin preludes into veritable typhoons", and "... in the Barcarolle, instead of gondolas and the vows of lovers, moonlight and soft Adriatic zephyrs, we were shown a huge warship that steamed through the Grand Canal, sirens screaming, cannons booming, and a band playing Hungarian Rhapsody by Liszt."

Recordings

Yolanda Mero made a number of piano rolls, of music by Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...

, Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

, Sergei Bortkiewicz

Sergei Bortkiewicz

Sergei Bortkiewicz was a Ukrainian-born Russian Romantic composer and pianist.-Early life:Sergei Eduardovich Bortkiewicz was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine on 28 February 1877 in Polish noble family and spent most of his childhood on the family estate of Artëmovka, near Kharkiv...

, Cécile Chaminade

Cécile Chaminade

Cécile Louise Stéphanie Chaminade was a French composer and pianist.-Biography:Born in Paris, she studied at first with her mother, then with Félix Le Couppey, Marie Gabriel Augustin Savard, Martin Pierre Marsick and Benjamin Godard, but not officially, since her father disapproved of her musical...

, Debussy

Claude Debussy

Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...

, Dohnányi

Erno Dohnányi

Ernő Dohnányi was a Hungarian conductor, composer, and pianist. He used the German form of his name Ernst von Dohnányi for most of his published compositions....

, Grieg

Edvard Grieg

Edvard Hagerup Grieg was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is best known for his Piano Concerto in A minor, for his incidental music to Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt , and for his collection of piano miniatures Lyric Pieces.-Biography:Edvard Hagerup Grieg was born in...

, Handel

George Frideric Handel

George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...

, Haydn

Joseph Haydn

Franz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...

, Liszt

Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...

, Moszkowski

Moritz Moszkowski

Moritz Moszkowski was a German Jewish composer, pianist, and teacher of Polish descent. Ignacy Paderewski said, "After Chopin, Moszkowski best understands how to write for the piano"...

, Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...

, Anton Rubinstein

Anton Rubinstein

Anton Grigorevich Rubinstein was a Russian-Jewish pianist, composer and conductor. As a pianist he was regarded as a rival of Franz Liszt, and he ranks amongst the great keyboard virtuosos...

, Schubert

Franz Schubert

Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...

, Sinding

Christian Sinding

Christian August Sinding was a Norwegian composer.-Personal life:He was born in Kongsberg as a son of mine superindendent Matthias Wilhelm Sinding and Cecilie Marie Mejdell . He was a brother of the painter Otto Sinding and the sculptor Stephan Sinding...

, Johann Strauss II

Johann Strauss II

Johann Strauss II , also known as Johann Baptist Strauss or Johann Strauss, Jr., the Younger, or the Son , was an Austrian composer of light music, particularly dance music and operettas. He composed over 500 waltzes, polkas, quadrilles, and other types of dance music, as well as several operettas...

, Richard Strauss

Richard Strauss

Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...

, Tchaikovsky

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...

, Max Vogrich

Max Vogrich

Max Vogrich was an Austrian pianist and composer.Max Vogrich was born in Hermannstadt, Transylvania . A childhood prodigy, he was an acclaimed pianist at the age of 14 years. He studied at Leipzig under Carl Reinecke, Hans Richter, Moritz Hauptmann, Wenzel, and Ignaz Moscheles, completing the...

 and Wagner

Richard Wagner

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

. She made only one 78rpm recording.

Sergei Bortkiewicz dedicated his Trois pièces pour piano, Op. 12, to her.

Her recording of Max Vogrich's Staccato-Caprice appears on the CD Women at the Piano: An Anthology of Historic Performances, Vol. 2 (1926-1950). and on Welte-Mignon Piano Rolls, Vol. 1 (1905-1927) It is said to display her "superb finish, beautiful phrasing and exquisite touch". Her recording of Karl Heymann's Elfenspiel, Etude in E major appears on Welte-Mignon Piano Rolls, Vol. 3 (1905-1926). Her playing of Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...

's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 4

Hungarian Rhapsodies

Hungarian Rhapsody redirects here. For the 1979 Hungarian film Hungarian Rhapsody . For the 1928 German film Ungarische Rhapsodie.The Hungarian Rhapsodies, S.244, R106, is a set of 19 piano pieces based on Hungarian folk themes, composed by Franz Liszt during 1846-1853, and later in 1882 and 1885...

 is on this YouTube video, and can also be found on CD.

Impresario

Mme Mero-Irion co-founded the New Opera Company, becoming at that time the world's only female impresario

Impresario

An impresario is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays or operas; analogous to a film producer in filmmaking, television production and an angel investor in business...

. She chose the repertoire, singers, conductors, artistic and stage directors, ballet masters and coaches. She produced The Merry Widow

The Merry Widow

The Merry Widow is an operetta by the Austro–Hungarian composer Franz Lehár. The librettists, Viktor Léon and Leo Stein, based the story – concerning a rich widow, and her countrymen's attempt to keep her money in the principality by finding her the right husband – on an 1861 comedy play,...

on Broadway in 1943, with choreography by George Balanchine

George Balanchine

George Balanchine , born Giorgi Balanchivadze in Saint Petersburg, Russia, to a Georgian father and a Russian mother, was one of the 20th century's most famous choreographers, a developer of ballet in the United States, co-founder and balletmaster of New York City Ballet...

 and starring Jan Kiepura

Jan Kiepura

Jan Wiktor Kiepura was an acclaimed Polish singer and actor.-Biography:...

, David Wayne

David Wayne

David Wayne was an American actor with a career spanning nearly 50 years.-Early life and career:...

, Robert Rounseville

Robert Rounseville

Robert Rounseville was an American tenor, who appeared in opera, operetta, and Broadway musicals.-Career:Rounseville was born in Attleboro, Massachusetts. He made his Broadway debut in a small role in the Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart musical Babes in Arms, then appeared in other musicals in...

 and others, and Marcel Pagnol

Marcel Pagnol

Marcel Pagnol was a French novelist, playwright, and filmmaker. In 1946, he became the first filmmaker elected to the Académie Française.-Biography:...

's play Topaze

Topaze

Topaze is the designation of a French sounding rocket. The Topaze was built by SEREB and was the first guidable French elevator research rocket...

, starring Tilly Losch

Tilly Losch

Ottilie Ethel Leopoldine "Tilly" Losch, Countess of Carnarvon was an Austrian-born dancer, choreographer, actress and painter who lived and worked for most of her life in the United States and United Kingdom....

, in 1947.

Radio activist

She also became an activist in the cause of improving the quality of the content of radio broadcasts, launching attacks on soap operas and advertising. She was founder and chairman of the Women's National Radio Committee and created the Gold Microphone Award.

Philanthropist

Yolanda Mero-Irion was active in providing support for destitute musicians. She co-founded the Musicians Emergency Fund, along with Olga Samaroff

Olga Samaroff

Olga Samaroff was a pianist, music critic, and teacher. Her second husband was conductor Leopold Stokowski.Samaroff was born Lucy Mary Agnes Hickenlooper in San Antonio, Texas, and grew up in Galveston, where her family owned a business later wiped out in the Great 1900 Galveston hurricane...

, Lucrezia Bori

Lucrezia Bori

Lucrezia Bori was a Spanish operatic singer, a lyric soprano.-Biography:Lucrezia Bori was born in Valencia, Spain. Her real name was Lucrecia Borja y González de Riancho and her family were reputed to be descended from the Borgias.Her voice had a unique timbre and transparent quality unlike any...

 and the wives of Ernest Schelling

Ernest Schelling

Ernest Henry Schelling was an American pianist, composer, and conductor.Born in Belvidere, New Jersey, Schelling was a child prodigy. His first teacher was his father. He entered the Academy of Music in Philadelphia at age 4. At age 7, Schelling traveled to Europe to study. He was admitted to the...

 and Ernest Hutcheson

Ernest Hutcheson

Ernest Hutcheson was an Australian pianist, composer and teacher.Hutcheson was born in Melbourne, and toured there as a child prodigy. He later travelled to Leipzig and entered the Leipzig Conservatorium at the age of fourteen to study with Carl Reinecke and Bernhard Stavenhagen, a pupil of Franz...

and was its Executive Director. She established an endowment with the Musicians Foundation, Inc.

Yolanda Mero-Irion lived with her husband on their estate in Rockland County, NY. She later lived at 983 Park Avenue, New York. She died on 17 October 1963, in Lenox Hill Hospital, aged 76.