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Colette Maze is 108 years old, but that doesn’t mean she has stopped practicing her passion, the piano. The instrument has accompanied her all her life and still allows her to feel “young, in her head and her body”. A portrait of “Special Envoy”.
Her life, she”has always lived it in music“. Colette Maze, born June 16, 1914, is a pianist. For her, “everything is rhythm“, the music “it’s a world of images, of beauty, of colors” And “a hand is like a brush, each finger must have its poetry“.
She discovered the piano very young, preferred it to her dolls and never stopped playing. His instrument him”gave tenderness“, perhaps the one that was missing in this child whose mother “was tough and only knew how to slap“. Abandoned by the father of her child, this independent woman, who chose her profession, had to face the prejudices of her environment, the Catholic upper middle class.
“Still Alive with the Piano”
A graduate of the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris, Colette Maze took lessons from Pascal Rogé, then became a piano teacher and practiced all her life. At 108, she still practices every day for four to five hours on her Steinway, chosen for her “good sound“.
The secret to her longevity is, she says, “lots of gymnastics, dancing and field hockey“, because she needs to feel the vigor of her body, of her muscles. She affirms it: with the music, “you can stay young in your head, in your heart… I’m still alive with the piano“.
A report by Violaine Vermot-Gaud, Claire-Marie Denis, Luis Marques, Benoît Sauvage, Mathilde Rougeron and Marie Bouchet broadcast in “Special Envoy” on March 30, 2023.
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