Vera Florence Bradford (5 September 1904 – 6 January 2004) was an Australian classical pianist and teacher, with a very long career.
Her debut was in 1931 at the Chicago Opera House where she played the Hungarian Gypsy Airs by Sophie Menter, orchestrated by Tchaikovsky.
This was followed by a long and triumphant career as a concert pianist in which she gave many first Australian performances – George Gershwin's Concerto in F, Richard Strauss's Burleske in D minor (1937), the Sophie Menter piece mentioned above, Debussy's Feux d'artifices,[1] and works by Bartók and William Walton.
The critic Neville Cardus wrote of a performance of the D minor concerto with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra: "Miss Bradford put forth a strength which many men might envy or fear.
In 1963 she represented Australia at the 2nd International Music Festival in Seoul, Korea and visited Japan, the Philippines, and Hong Kong.
She continued to be active in music well into the 1970s, being the first pianist to perform a recital for Melbourne television[1] However, for a time during this period, she was excluded from any ABC engagements, due to difficulties she had with the General Manager, Sir Charles Moses, and her recordings were banned.