LDV86

I went to see Isabelle in two shows, fascinated each time by her energy, her radiant voice and her vitality. I envied those around her, who benefited from the luminosity of her generous talent. But we only actually met more recently, in January 2020. That was a difficult time for me, because my piano teacher, my musical mother, Victoria Melki, who was ill, died shortly afterwards. Isabelle’s voice immediately restored my zest for life. After a week, her subtle intuition prompted her to suggest we should do a song by Gilbert Bécaud, the twentieth anniversary of whose death we commemorate in 2021. As a student at the Nice Conservatoire, he wrote Le Pianiste de Varsovie , a song about his piano teacher, about Chopin, about the Second World War . . . I have the feeling that it also retraces the life of Madame Melki. DANA CIOCARLIE & FRIENDS 49