Colette Maze has been playing the piano for over a century and continues to gain a large online following. The French pianist is preparing to release her seventh album, "108 Years of Piano," and was born in June 1914, before the start of World War I and while one of her favourite composers, Claude Debussy, was still alive. She practises for four hours every day. Throughout the most of her life, Maze taught piano, and it wasn't until she became 100 that she began gaining a sizable following via her Facebook profile. Her continued good health and determination to continue enjoying the traditional French pleasures of wine, cheese, and chocolate serve as an example to many.
"She gives people strength – that's why she has such crazy success," said her son, journalist Fabrice Maze, adding with pride that she is one of the few people over 100 releasing albums. She still remembers the sound of "Big Bertha", the huge cannon used by the German army during World War I, but most of her memories revolve around her instrument. "When I was little, I suffered from asthma and my mother would play violin with my piano teacher – it would calm me," she says. "Piano is my life, my friend. I need to feel it and hear it," she adds, before offering a rendition of Debussy's "Reflections in the Water". Maze began playing at five, and despite reluctance from her parents, she won a place at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris with teachers including the renowned Alfred Cortot. Cortot was known for a method of relaxing all the muscles of the body – which Maze credits with sparing her from arthritis.