NEW YORK (AP) – Ruth Laredo, the elegant pianist who recorded the entire solo works of Rachmaninoff and the sonatas of Scriabin, has died. She was 67.

Laredo died Wednesday in her apartment, said her manager James Murtha. She had ovarian cancer and last performed May 6 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Detroit-born Laredo graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia in 1960. Over the years, she played at such venues as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center and the White House, playing at solo recitals, with orchestras and chamber music groups.

“In the classical world, there’s only been a handful of prominent women pianists over the years, and she certainly was one of them,” Murtha said. Her Web site referred to her as “America’s First Lady of Piano.”

For the past several years, she gave well-received concerts at the Metropolitan Museum. At those events, called “Concerts with Commentary,” she would not only play the works of a range of composers, but discuss them with the audience. The series was so popular that she started holding them around the country.

Laredo also played around the world, notably in an extensive tour of Russia and the Ukraine with concerts in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Odessa.

She was particularly known for two sets of recordings, the complete solo works of Rachmaninoff and the piano sonatas of Scriabin, both recorded in the 1970s and re-issued in recent years. Laredo also recorded works by Ravel, Brahms, Chopin, and Beethoven, among others, and was nominated for a Grammy award three times.

Her passion for music extended beyond the keyboard. She contributed to “Piano Today” magazine and National Public Radio, wrote “The Ruth Laredo Becoming A Musician Book” and worked as editor of the complete “Rachmaninoff Preludes for Piano.”

She also appeared as a pianist in Woody Allen’s “Small Time Crooks,” the 2000 movie with Hugh Grant and Tracy Ullman.

Laredo, who divorced the violinist Jamie Laredo in the 1970s, is survived by her daughter, Jennifer, who is married to cellist Paul Watkins, and a granddaughter.

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