 Durand was also a patron of musicians; in 1927, he made a donation of 100,000 francs to the Académie des beaux-arts to establish a biennual musical composition prize for a symphonic or chamber music work.His untimely death in 1928 prevented him from seeing the realisation of this gift.Durand was the owner of the manor house of "Bel Ébat" in Avon, the former hunting lodge of King Henry IV of France, not far from Fontainebleau.