The 24-year-old author, composer and performer is nominated five times for the Victoires de la Musique 2024, Friday.
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She will be the center of attention, Friday February 9, for the Victoires de la Musique. Zaho De Sagazan, first artist to receive five nominations, including those for Revelation and Album of the Year, with her very first album released less than a year ago.
Zaho De Sagazan has exploded this year, in a very short time. Can she go even further? Not even a month ago, in Gröningen, in the north of the Netherlands, the artist won two prizes at the prestigious Music Moves Europe Awards. On the posters in front of the Grand Théâtre municipal, the “Z” in his first name had inadvertently been replaced by an “S”. But Zaho De Sagazan was obviously moved: “I find it magnificent. To tell myself that a little 15-year-old girl crying on her piano can do good to others… I find it so beautiful.”
First stage at the Trianon in Paris in 2021
How then can we not think back to this “little 15 year old girl”, as she says, who posted videos on Instagram from her teenage bedroom in Saint-Nazaire. At only 24 years old, and in just a few months, the young woman saw her life completely turned upside down.
There is suitable land at home. His father, the visual artist Olivier De Sagazan, undoubtedly stimulated his artistic fiber. On October 21, 2021, Zaho took to the stage for the first time, at the Trianon in Paris, as the opening act for Mansfield.TYA. A few weeks earlier, she signed with a turner, Wart, at the end of a meeting that artistic director Joran Le Corre has not forgotten: “It’s rare, and what’s crazy about Zaho is that everything we imagined, everything we aimed for, we got it. And for me, that never happened to me in my life as a turner. We managed to tick all the boxes with disconcerting ease.”
“The Symphony of Lightning”
The following ? A creation at the Trans Musicales in Rennes which propels it into the spotlight, with positive reviews flourishing. We met her at that time: “I think you’re going to see a little girl who’s trying to get out of her adolescence, who’s dissected the human as much as possible and who’s experimenting with everything. It’s a lot of experimentation but I think it’s going to be interesting. I Hope you like it, anyway!”
At the same time, she is preparing her first album, which she wants to straddle between electro and song, helped by Alexis Delong and Pierre Cheguillaume: “Already, I found the proposal, the music quite different. The thing is that we became quite friends, quite quickly. So, the fact of making music together, it was very quickly something playground thing. Having fun, testing things. And yes, there are songs, it took a really long time. There are songs that took 15 versions over two years.”
The Symphony of Lightning was released on March 31, 2023 and today it is still one of the notable albums of last year, a critical and sales success, certified gold, extremely rare for a very early career.
The Zénith tour
Everyone sees her leaving with at least two Victories this evening. Then, it will be a new stage… His turner, Joran Le Corre: “We are now preparing for the Zénith. The Zénith in Paris is sold out. Nantes is already at almost 6,000 tickets sold, that’s in a month, it’s completely crazy. And the fall tour, I think that with this notoriety of the Victories and what she’s going to do from a media point of view in the coming weeks, it’s only going to make her profile grow and her music reach as many people as possible.”
As for her : “I see myself two years ago, I didn’t have the same schedule and I think if someone would have shown me a similar schedule, I would have said: ‘What are you tell?’ I have never done so many things in my life, I have never had so many thrills and, at the same time, I have never been so tired. There are so many things where I have never been as much as it’s crazy. I think I’ll know if I’ve changed, especially when I take a break. I would also like to become a care assistant again to see the elderly people I love, to do volunteer work… In In any case, I have lots of ideas, I feel like I won’t get bored.”
Always surrounded by the same team, and with a strong personality, she is armed, that’s what her friend Pierre Cheguillaume seems to believe: “It’s pretty crazy to be part of this and to get to this point. It’s pretty incredible and, for the moment, I think she’s experiencing it particularly well for someone who is so in demand. I’m very happy that it turned out like this.” She, in any case, still refuses to choose between exhibitions, from Trans Musicales to Star Academy.