Colette Maze has been playing the piano for over a century and has thousands of followers on social media.
The French pianist, who was born in June 1914, before the commencement of World War I and while one of her favorite artists, Claude Debussy, was still alive, practices four hours a day and is set to release her eighth album, “108 Years of Piano.”
Maze glides warily between the three pianos in her living room at her Paris apartment overlooking the Seine River, yet with young exuberance.
“Me? “I’m young,” she replies, smiling. “I’m not interested in getting older. There are individuals who are eternally youthful and fascinated by everything, and then there are those who don’t care about anything and have never loved anything, including their lover – can you imagine?” She continues.
‘Piano is my life,’ she says.
Maze was a piano instructor for much of her life, and it wasn’t until she became 100 that she began establishing a huge fan base – via her Facebook profile.
Many people are impressed by her continued excellent health and determination to give up typical French delights such as wine, cheese, and chocolate.
“She gives people power – that’s why she has such incredible success,” her son, journalist Fabrice Maze, said, adding with pleasure that she is one of the rare persons beyond the age of 100 who sells records.
She recalls the sound of “Big Bertha,” the massive gun fired by the German troops during World War I, but her main memory is of her instrument.
How I started Playing Piano
“When I was a kid, I had asthma, and my mother would play violin with my piano instructor to calm me down,” she recounts.
“Piano, my friend, is my life.” “I need to feel and hear it,” she continues, before performing Debussy’s “Reflections in the Sea.”
Maze began playing at the age of five, and despite her parents’ reservations, she was accepted into the École Normale de Music de Paris, where she studied with professors such as the legendary Alfred Cortot.
Cortot was recognized for a way of relaxing all of the body’s muscles, which Maze credits with keeping her arthritis at bay.
Her other youthful secret? “I used to do a lot of dancing,” she explains. “I need to feel my muscles, abs, thighs, and arms.” “Everything must be living.”
