Pianist, singer, composer and producer, Charlotte Reinhardt embodies a musical freedom forged at the crossroads of worlds. Great-niece of legendary Django Reinhardt, she now divides her time between France and the wild heights of Cantabria, Spain. The daughter of a gypsy mother and an English father, she entered the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris at the age of 13, where she trained in classical piano and chamber music. Very early on, she charted a unique path, between academic demands and a thirst for exploration. Charlotte Reinhardt navigates with ease between opera, pop, theater, jazz and classical music, weaving a personal and sensitive writing that eludes labels. She also signs film scores. Her album " Colors » (2022), a series of piano improvisations, can be heard like a diary 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 demands of classical music with the freshness of contemporary textures. Charlotte Reinhardt gracefully pursues her quest for pure, free, and inhabited music. As a prelude to her next Parisian concert, which will close (on May 19) the Saint-Germain-des-Prés Jazz Festival, the musician shares with us her current favorites.

1/ Muriel Nisse and the masks

At the Opera, where I was recently working, I met Muriel Nisse, a mask designer. Her work had a profound impact on me: her masks are true works of art, at the crossroads of fashion, craftsmanship, and embroidery and hair work. She is also a wigmaker and makeup artist at the Paris Opera, and has exhibited at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in the exhibition " Hair and fur ". Through his creations, we feel the influence of mythology, tribalism, and ethnicity. His work touched me because, for me, even before going on stage, we all put on a mask. The mask speaks of identification, it transports the invisible, it gives a voice to unexpressed things. It's a very strong common thread for me. Since childhood, composition has been my refuge. I wrote my first pieces at the age of nine; I wanted to make film music. My journey then led me towards more classical foundations, with my mother, a piano teacher, and a conservatory course. Later, my stepfather, a jazz guitarist, opened me up to other worlds. Then I gradually 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. It's you.“A real turning point. I dropped this mask to awaken my true voice, that of the piano. I fully embrace this notion of 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 ", that's very true.

2/ Antoine Bataille

Antoine Bataille is an artist, composer, author, and performer with whom I work closely. He directed all my music videos. Between us, there is an extremely common sensitivity, an almost instinctive understanding. Antoine is a rare bird, difficult to describe as he is unlike anyone else in the current musical landscape. He is the one who truly pushed me to find my artistic path, by accompanying me on my latest album, " fables ", After" Colors ". He told me : " When I hear your music, I see who you are. » It was a huge turning point for me. His music is deeply poetic, a literary rock song carried by chiseled, sensitive and demanding lyrics. We could, in some respects, compare him to Gérard Manset, even if he has his absolute singularity. He shuns the media, the glitter, and offers paths too little explored in the contemporary musical landscape. On stage, Antoine Bataille is impressive. He removes all masks: the self-giving is total. It is a space of living and immediate creation. He has a magnificent voice, full and vibrant. His latest album, " Forests », mixes electro, pop and poetry with a very personal lyricism. He has already released around fifteen albums, and is preparing a new opus entitled « Sand ", around the theme of time and the hourglass. Antoine also collaborates with directors and explores other artistic mediums. He is a true creator, in a world all his own.

3/ Pianist Daniil Trifonov

Daniil Trifonov is an extraordinary Russian pianist. The first time I heard about him, I learned that he worked in a swimming pool to test his body weight. This image fascinated me. Since then, Daniil Trifonov has won prestigious awards, including the Tchaikovsky Competition and the Third Chopin Competition, at which Martha Argerich declared, " I've never heard that ". When I finally heard him in concert, it was a shock. Time seemed to stand still. In the hall, we almost stopped breathing. His touch is exceptional. Sometimes, we don't even recognize the sound of the piano: crystal, of a moving purity. He combines a rare power and poetry. I traveled to London to hear him play the " Concerto in G » by Ravel, which is my favorite work. And he managed to reinvent it! He brought out nuances that I had never perceived, yet I know this score by heart. What I particularly like about him is his philosophy of music: he talks about the wave, explaining that one should not create the wave, but surf on it. He puts himself at the service of the work, of the composer, without seeking to impose himself. An approach as humble as it is impressive. I will soon see him in concert: he plays at the Philharmonie de Paris on May 28. Each of his appearances is a moment outside of time. One might wonder how he maintains this intensity, as tours can sometimes wear down young prodigies. But Daniil works enormously, and for now, he maintains 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 the north of 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, populated by wolves and bears. There, in a small village enclosed in a valley, time seems to stretch out. At midday, everyone meets in the square for a coffee or a vermouth. It's a very strong, very wild universe, where the connection to nature is immediate. That's where I started composing my album " Fable ". This place is for me an essential source of inspiration, a moment of contemplation, of pause, where one listens to the silence and where stories nourish the imagination. The Campo Valley, where I am staying, is so isolated that the road stops at the top of the mountains, facing the Picos de Europa. Next door, the Saja Valley is even wilder. It is an incredibly preserved place, inhabited by living tales: we come across bears, we hear a thousand tales of encounters and legends. Among these stories, there is that of Ángel, a 75-year-old old man. I even dedicated a title to him, " Angel's Labyrinth During the lockdown, he planted 13 trees to build the largest labyrinth in Europe, perched in the mountains. Despite the disease of the first seedlings, he replanted, persevered, and inaugurated his labyrinth last summer. He is a mountain poet: he builds huts, stones, small cafeterias, and now dreams of installing a zip line to fly over his labyrinth. He is a living symbol of stubborn and free creation, in the heart of this raw nature that nourishes me so much. 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 big city nearby, splendid, and only an hour's drive from the peaks. It is the land of my maternal family. My mother spent her childhood there, half in France, half in Spain. When she was little, she was fragile, and her grandparents sent her to breathe the mountain air to heal. 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 a Romani. This mosaic 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 artist, and it was love at first sight. I don't have a particular background in comics, but his work literally fascinated 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 a meeting between graphic art and philosophy. Each work is an experiment: inverted covers, distorted perspectives, mirrored narratives, torn pages that interact with the story... He overturns all the traditional codes of narration. Reading his albums is a unique experience. Julius Corentin becomes a Kafkaesque hero, and moreover, his name is an anagram of Franz Kafka, which sums up the spirit of his universe: we navigate between dream, absurdity and metaphysical depth. At the moment, I'm discovering his latest books, " Deep Me " and " Deep It ", which was just given to me. It's completely dark, both visually and in its content. Some pages are almost empty, leaving room for a stripped-down, almost invisible text. It's totally philosophical, dizzying. I already had great respect for the work of Catherine Meurisse, but Marc-Antoine Mathieu 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.