On June 16, 1914, Collette Maze was born in Paris. On June 16, 1919 she received her first piano lesson as a birthday gift. She was instantly hooked and piano became one of her life's passions. Her tutors included the legendary pianist Alfred Cortot whom she studied at Paris’s École Normale de Musique.
Around her teens she started writing her own music. “I always preferred composers who gave me tenderness, like Schumann and Debussy. Music is an affective language, a poetic language. In music there is everything: nature, emotion, love, revolt, dreams. It’s like a spiritual food.” She was rejected at her audition for a concert pianist in the mid 1930's and went on to be a piano teacher.
Today she still lives in Paris in a high rise on the Seine River with two pianos in her apartment: a baby grand, and a Pleyel she received on her 18th birthday. She still plays four hours every day!
Now 102 years after beginning to play she has released an album, a compilation of all Debussy pieces—her favorite composer.
Collette says; “Life is all about staying passionate and curious. You can’t let that slip away!”