Czech harpsichordist Zuzana Ruzickova dies at 90
Czech award-winning harpsichordist and music teacher Zuzana Ruzickova poses for photographers in 2016. Credit: AP / Katerina Suldova
PRAGUE — Zuzana Ruzickova, a Czech musician who survived Nazi death camps and communist persecution before winning world acclaim as a harpsichordist, has died at age 90.
Czech Philharmonic spokesman Ludek Brezina said Ruzickova died on Wednesday.
Ruzickova and her parents were interned at the Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1942. After her father’s death, the Nazis sent her and her mother to the death camps at Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen.
Ruzickova’s persecution continued after the communists took power in what was then Czechoslovakia in 1948.
Her international career kicked off with a victory in an international competition in Munich in 1956.
Ruzickova played music that spanned baroque to contemporary, but was the first musician to record all of Bach’s music for harpsichord.
She received numerous awards, including recognition by France’s Order of Arts and Letters.
