Claire Dan

A true hero of Australian music performance.

Portrait by Judy Cassab

Miss Claire Dan, OBE, AO, has just released her engaging personal memoir, its release timed to the 9th Sydney International Piano Competition.

Claire Dan was born into an upper class Hungarian family. She wanted a career, and as a teenager, danced, sang and performed in cabaret. She experienced the tragedies of World War II at very close range, moving from bombed out houses and from one town to another. The Russians sent her husband of 6 months off to a labour camp. She never saw him again.

She became friends with a cabaret entrepreneur whom she later married. Together, they were accepted as immigrants to Australia in 1949.

Her husband was ambitious: she supported him and their family of two adopted girls, while he developed the trucking business Alltrans, that later was absorbed and became TNT.

After their divorce, she began a career of her own. In 1970, she founded the Sydney International Piano Competition, which has now completed its 9th season.

Awarded an OBE and Order of Australia (AO), her memoir is an engaging, friendly, encouraging and personal story of her life and its UPS & DOWNS.

Books by Claire Dan

Ups & Downs Here is the personal memoir of Miss Claire Dan, OBE, AO, the founder of the Sydney International Piano Competition.

AU$50.00 Add to Trolley