Colette Maze, a hundred years of piano and thousands of subscribers

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Imagine being born in 1914 and continuing to play the piano at the age of 108, with thousands of subscribers on the internet: this is the story of the Frenchwoman Colette Maze.

Born a month before the start of the First World War and a few months after the death of one of her favorite composers, Claude Debussy, the French pianist does not just play the piano four hours a day.

@neo.tvofficiel At almost 107 years old, Colette Maze is releasing her 6th album. 🎹❤️ #fyp #pourtoi #tiktokacademie #music ♬ original sound – neo

She is preparing to release her 7th album before the summer, “108 years of piano”, with pieces by Gershwin, Piazzolla, Schumann and, of course, Debussy.

In her apartment located on the 14th floor of a building overlooking the Seine, this frail lady with slender arms manages to move slowly between the three pianos that sit enthroned in her living room.

Her longevity impresses, her enthusiasm even more.

“I'm young,” she exclaims. “Age are stories that don't exist. (…) There are people who are eternally young, amazed by everything, and then people who are jaded by everything and who have never loved anything, not even their boyfriend, if that is!”, smiles -elle.

At her side, her son, the journalist Fabrice Maze, indicates, not without pride, that she “is probably the last centenarian to continue recording albums”.

“The piano, my life”

Since she turned 100, she has become the darling of social networks and media around the world (with a dedicated Facebook page). “She lifts people's spirits, hence her wild success,” says Maze.

“She has neither diabetes nor cholesterol, her blood pressure is normal. She drinks wine, eats cheese, chocolate… And people who are 80, 90 years old say to themselves: “Finally, we're not screwed,” he jokes.

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Her memory is naturally not what it used to be, but she has a distant memory at the age of 4 of the bombardments of the “Big Bertha”, this piece of artillery used by the Germans during the Great War.

The Liberation, on the other hand, has faded from his memory. And when asked who is the President of the Republic, she often answers Pompidou or Chirac. “She is in the moment, but is completely disconnected from the news”, comments her son.

During the Second World War, “I was a nurse in Auxerre and I made the exodus (from 1940) by bicycle, from Paris to Clermont-Ferrand with two bags full of laundry”, she recalls. .

Intact memories are often linked to the piano: “When I was little, I had asthma; my mum played the violin with my piano teacher and that calmed me down”.

Why does she keep playing? “Because it's my life… The piano is a friend. I need to feel it and listen to it”, she says before interpreting Debussy's “Reflections in the water”. “Schumann listened to his heart, Debussy listened to nature,” she notes.

Born Saulnier into a bourgeois family in Paris, she began the piano at age 5, but her parents are opposed to her becoming a professional pianist. However, at the age of 15, she managed to integrate the Normal School of Music in Paris, where she took lessons from the famous Alfred Cortot and Nadia Boulanger.

@advancedstyleofficial Colette Maze #pianist #debussy #centenarian #colettemaze #paris #old #aging #agelessbeauty #ageless ♬ original sound – Advanced Style

She who taught for decades at the École Normale de Musique and the Conservatoire de Bagneux, near Paris, is also the custodian of the Cortot method, taught before the war and based on exercises to relax and soften all the muscles.

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“It is the last in the world to be able to show this method; many pianists around the world come to see her work,” explains Mr. Maze.

This is how the centenarian, who does not suffer from osteoarthritis, kept her hands flexible.

His secret of youth? “I did a lot of dancing. I think I need to feel my muscles, my abs, my thighs, my arms. All this must be alive”.