Pianist Colette Maze, who became the darling of social networks at 100, died at the age of 109

His latest album, “109 years of piano”, was available on music platforms since July.

She was the darling of music lovers. French pianist Colette Maze died on Sunday at her Parisian home at the age of 109, her son announced on Facebook on Tuesday November 21. The religious ceremony will take place on November 28 at 10:30 a.m. at the Saint-Roch church in Paris, we can read on the page dedicated to the artist.

Her latest album, “109 years of piano”, on which she played Gershwin, Piazzolla, Schumann and Debussy, was available on music platforms since July. Born a month before the start of the First World War and almost four years before the death of one of her favorite composers, Claude Debussy, the pianist was still playing the piano four hours a day when AFP met her at spring.

The Paris Normal School of Music at 15

“Me, I am young”, she exclaimed at the time. “Age is 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 never have anything loved ones, not even their boyfriend, maybe!”

Born into a bourgeois family in Paris, she started playing the piano at age 5 but her parents were opposed to her becoming a professional pianist. However, at the age of 15, she managed to join the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris, where she took lessons from the famous Alfred Cortot and Nadia Boulanger.

The one who taught for decades at the Ecole Normale de Musique and at the Bagneux Conservatory (Hauts-de-Seine) was also the custodian of the Cortot method, based on exercises to relax and soften all the muscles. .