Fred Figner also known as Frederico Figner, was a Czech-born Jewish emigrant who lived in the United States

United States

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

 and landed in Belém

Belém

Belém is a Brazilian city, the capital and largest city of state of Pará, in the country's north region. It is the entrance gate to the Amazon with a busy port, airport and bus/coach station...

, Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

 in 1891. He traveled to many regions of Brazil doing public exhibitions of his phonograph

Phonograph

The phonograph record player, or gramophone is a device introduced in 1877 that has had continued common use for reproducing sound recordings, although when first developed, the phonograph was used to both record and reproduce sounds...

. Nine years later Figner settled down in Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...

, where he established in 1902 the Casa Edison, the first commercial recording company in Brazil. Such company is considered a pioneer in recording and selling Brazilian popular music.

Trivia

• Casa Édison was the first recording studio in Brazil.

• Odeon, another enterprise founded by Figner was the first Brazilian factory of phonograph records.