Sharjah24 – Reuters: Colette Maze's delicate fingers leaped back and forth on the black-and-white keys of her piano, her body lightly swaying to the melody of Claude Debussy's famed "Clair de Lune" in her living room.
French cultural venues have now been closed since months due to the COVID-19 pandemic but that didn't deter Maze, a 106-year-old pianist, to record her sixth album, slated to be released in April.
On the 14th floor of a 15-storey building near the Eiffel Tower, in Paris, Maze, born in 1914, looks to the clouds for inspiration, saying music is more important for her than any type of food.
Maze, who has been playing the piano since the age of 4, was raised in a bourgeois family, as her father managed a fertilizer plant, while her strict mother stayed at home.
Homeschooled by her parents for several years, Maze was accepted at the Normal School of Music in Paris when her family moved to the French capital. There, she learnt routines based on yoga and finger gymnastics, which she credits for her still-agile fingers on the keyboard.
She then became a supporting piano player at several music schools in the city, a profession she sustained for most of her adult life.
Maze started recording albums in 1998, with a first release in 2001. After her 2020 album with works of French composers Erik Satie and Debussy, she's preparing a three-disc album on Debussy.
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