Pianist, singer, composer, and producer, Charlotte Reinhardt embodies a musical freedom forged at the crossroads of worlds. The great-niece of the legendary Django Reinhardt , she now divides her time between France and the wild heights of Cantabria, Spain. The daughter of a Romani mother and an English father, she entered the Paris Conservatory at the age of 13, where she studied classical piano and chamber music. Early on, she forged a unique path, balancing academic rigor with a thirst for exploration. Charlotte Reinhardt navigates with ease between opera, pop, theater, jazz, and classical music, weaving a personal and sensitive style that defies categorization. She also composes film scores. Her album " Colors " (2022), a series of piano improvisations, can be listened to like a journal of inner journeys. In 2023, " Fables " was born in the heart of the Spanish mountains: a work that is both stripped-down and vibrant, blending the rigor of classical music with the freshness of contemporary textures. Charlotte Reinhardt continues, with grace, her quest for pure, free, and deeply felt music. As a prelude to her upcoming Parisian concert, which will close the Saint-Germain-des-Prés Jazz Festival (on May 19th), the musician shares her current favorites with us.

1/ Muriel Nisse and the masks

At the Opera, where I was working recently, I met Muriel Nisse, a mask designer. Her work profoundly affected me: her masks are true works of art, at the crossroads of fashion, craftsmanship, embroidery, and hairwork. She is also a wigmaker and makeup artist at the Paris Opera and exhibited at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in the exhibition " Hair and Fur ." Through her creations, one senses the influence of mythology, tribal art, and ethnic culture. Her work resonated with me because, for me, even before going on stage, we all put on a mask. The mask speaks of identification; it conveys the invisible, it gives voice to the unspoken. It's a very powerful guiding thread for me. Since childhood, composition has been my refuge. I wrote my first pieces at the age of nine; I wanted to compose film scores. My path then led me to a more classical foundation, with my mother, a piano teacher, and a conservatory education. Later, my stepfather, a jazz guitarist, opened my eyes to other musical worlds. Then, little by little, I integrated my voice by writing songs. Until the day Antoine Bataille, a magnificent artist, heard my instrumental compositions and said to me, “ There, I hear you. That's you. ” A real turning point. I dropped that mask to awaken my true voice, the voice of the piano. I fully embrace this notion of a mask, which I find very beautiful. It also reveals vulnerability. Leonard Cohen said, “ There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in, ” and it's very true.

2/ Antoine Bataille

Antoine Bataille is an artist, composer, songwriter, and performer with whom I work closely. He directed all my music videos. We share an extremely deep sensibility, an almost instinctive understanding. Antoine is a rare bird, difficult to describe because he's unlike anyone else in today's music scene. He's the one who truly pushed me to find my artistic path, accompanying me on my latest album, " Fables ," after " Colors ." He told me, " When I hear your music, I see who you are. " That was a huge turning point for me. His music is profoundly poetic, a literary rock song carried by finely crafted, sensitive, and demanding lyrics. In some ways, he could be compared to Gérard Manset, even though he has his own absolute singularity. He shuns the media and the glitz, and offers paths that are too rarely explored in the contemporary music landscape. On stage, Antoine Bataille is impressive. He removes all masks: his selflessness is total. It's a living, immediate space for creation. He possesses a magnificent, rich, and vibrant voice. His latest album, " Forêt ," blends electro, pop, and poetry with a deeply personal lyricism. He has already released around fifteen albums and is currently working on a new one entitled " Sable ," which explores the themes of time and the hourglass. Antoine also collaborates with directors and explores other artistic mediums. He is a true creator, in a world entirely his own.

3/ Pianist Daniil Trifonov

Daniil Trifonov is an extraordinary Russian pianist. The first time I heard about him, I learned that he practiced in a swimming pool to test the body's weight. That image fascinated me. Since then, Daniil Trifonov has won prestigious prizes, including the Tchaikovsky Competition and the third Chopin Competition, at which Martha Argerich declared, " I've never heard anything like it ." When I finally heard him in concert, it was a revelation. Time seemed to stand still. In the hall, everyone almost stopped breathing. His touch is exceptional. Sometimes, you don't even recognize the sound of the piano: pure, crystalline, breathtakingly clear. He combines rare power and poetry. I traveled to London to hear him play Ravel's Piano Concerto in G, which is my favorite piece. And he managed to reinvent it! He brought out nuances I had never perceived before, even though I know the score by heart. What I particularly love about him is his philosophy of music: he talks about the wave, explaining that you shouldn't create the wave, but surf it. He puts himself at the service of the work, of the composer, without trying to impose himself. An approach as humble as it is impressive. I'll soon see him in concert: he's playing at the Philharmonie de Paris on May 28th. Each of his appearances is a timeless moment. One might wonder how he maintains this intensity, given how touring can sometimes wear down young prodigies. But Daniil works incredibly hard, and for now, he retains this almost mystical connection to music.

The Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov performing solo recital at Carnegie Hall on Saturday night, October 28, 2017. He performed the music of Mompou, Schumann, Grieg, Barber, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff and Chopin. (Photo by Hiroyuki Ito/Getty Images)

4/ Cantabria and the man who planted trees

I'm half Spanish, and a large part of my heart is in Cantabria, in northern Spain. The Atlantic coast there is wilder than the south or east of the country. It's a bit like Brittany, with its mountains, frozen rivers, and remote valleys inhabited by wolves and bears. There, in a small village nestled in a valley, time seems to stretch out. At midday, everyone gathers in the square for coffee or vermouth. It's a very powerful, very wild world, where the connection to nature is immediate. It's where I began composing my album " Fable ." This place is an essential source of inspiration for me, a moment of contemplation, of pause, where you listen to the silence and where stories nourish the imagination. The Campo Valley, where I'm staying, is so isolated that the road ends at the top of the mountains, facing the Picos de Europa. Nearby, the Saja Valley is even wilder. It's an incredibly unspoiled place, inhabited by living tales: you might encounter bears, and you'll hear countless stories of encounters and legends. Among these stories is that of Ángel, a 75-year-old man. I even dedicated a book to him, " Ángel's Labyrinth ." During the lockdown, he planted 13,000 trees to build the largest labyrinth in Europe, perched high in the mountains. Despite the first saplings falling ill, he replanted, persevered, and inaugurated his labyrinth last summer. He's a poet of the mountains: he builds cabins, stones, small cafes, and now dreams of installing a zip line to fly over his labyrinth. He's a living symbol of stubborn and free creation, at the heart of this raw nature that nourishes me so deeply. I return to Cantabria several times a year, often two or three times. In the summer, I stay there for almost two months, between the sea and the mountains. Santander is the nearby, splendid city, just an hour's drive from the peaks. It's the land of my mother's family. My mother spent her childhood there, half in France, half in Spain. As a child, she was frail, and her grandparents would send her to breathe the mountain air to heal her. As for me, I was born in France, in Cognac. My father is English, my mother is half Spanish, half German, with Hungarian roots as well. My maternal grandmother was Roma. This mosaic has shaped me: French by birth, but Spain remains my second home.

5/ Comic book artist Marc-Antoine Mathieu

I recently discovered Marc-Antoine Mathieu, a comic book author, and it was love at first sight. I don't have a particularly deep knowledge of comics, but his work utterly captivated me. His black and white aesthetic immediately seduced me. He offers a metaphysical, philosophical comic book through a series entitled " Julius Corentin Acquefacques, Prisoner of Dreams ." It's an encounter between graphic art and philosophy. Each book is an experiment: inverted covers, distorted perspectives, mirrored narratives, torn pages that interact with the story… He overturns all the traditional codes of storytelling. Reading his albums is a unique experience. Julius Corentin becomes a Kafkaesque hero, and in fact, his name is an anagram of Franz Kafka, which perfectly encapsulates the spirit of his universe: we navigate between dream, absurdity, and metaphysical depth. Right now, I'm discovering his latest books, " Deep Me " and " Deep It, " which were just given to me as gifts. They're completely dark, both visually and thematically. Some pages are practically blank, leaving room for a minimalist, almost invisible text. It's totally philosophical, dizzying. I already had great respect for Catherine Meurisse's work, but Marc-Antoine Mathieu has opened up another dimension of comics for me.

French comic book illustrator Marc Antoine Mathieu at the Comic Book Festival of Caderousse. | Location: Caderousse, France. (Photo by David Lefranc/Kipa/Sygma via Getty Images)

6/ My cat

Actually, she's a little five-year-old cat named Carlottine. She's close to Charlotte, which I like. She arrived just before the lockdown, practically born on my knees while I was playing the piano. Since then, it's as if we haven't left each other. She's more and more mimetic, in fusion. There's something astonishing, a constant, vibrant presence. When I play, she comes, she climbs on the piano. She feels. It's palpable. There's this video on Instagram, where she comes and rubs against me while I play. I hadn't anticipated the effect it would have, but there was something very pure, very true. It's a mystery, in fact. She's there, often. And I look at her. Sometimes I wonder: is everything there? Is nothing there? And I believe everything there is. A form of permanent meditation. A listening. A fusion that deepens every day. We spend our lives together, she at the piano, me in front of it. We communicate without speaking. Through looks, through touch. Through music too, perhaps especially. It's fascinating, this invisible intensity. Before her, I had another cat. I found him in Istanbul, tiny, barely two weeks old, abandoned under a tarpaulin. I brought him back with me, clandestinely. He was in bad shape. But I nursed him back to health, and he lived in Paris for sixteen years. His name was Mermet.