Piano Scene #20: My Mother, The Piano, And The Whole World

I understood, the day of my first audition, that the piano would never leave me again. An evidence that grabbed me by the collar and told me, without sentences, without explanations: it’s here.

A hallway sound, a knot pulled tight in my stomach, shoes too clean, that strange feeling of being expected… As I get ready to perform this Sunday at the Opéra Garnier in Paris, a door swings open in my memory and, without warning, I am back at the exact instant when something was decided inside me, an instant whose impact would run through my entire life.

I remember the preparation for that first audition. It had become a rite. That day, my mother put the world on mute. Anything that could stir me up, distract me, crowd my mind, she pushed aside with firm hands. As if, for a few hours, I had earned a privilege. Like a birthday. I felt special, protected so I could give the best of myself. And that kind of protection, when you are a child, becomes a strength. I walked into life as if, secretly, my mother had signed a pact with fate. In exchange for my effort at the keyboard, the rest was supposed to be made easier.

My mother chose what I would wear. She was proud and tense at the same time, and yet never afraid. She was never intimidated by adversity. She moved forward with resources you will not find in any manual: the instinct to defend, the instinct to push, the instinct to believe. When it was time to stand her ground, she knew how. For us. For our dreams. So that no one could make us feel we were not in our place.

She dreamed of those magical places, of that culture, of that invisible literature hovering around the great composers, of those ornamented halls where even the air seems to be telling a story across centuries. She lived our progress as if it were a family ascent. As if every step we climbed was a victory over everything that could have held us back.

And then came the calm before playing. A calm I still know today, but which, at that age, felt almost supernatural. The room, silent, waited for me to place the first note. I felt my heart in my hands. I felt the piano before I even touched it.

The piece itself left no mark in my memory. I only know what I saw after. That change in faces when something touches you. That discreet but undeniable shift. As if the music had moved a piece of furniture inside the people who had offered me their attention. And I, as a child, felt valued. I felt that what I was doing had weight. That a performance, even a simple one, could rearrange an inner world.

When it came time to bow, I was proud to have held on. Proud to have been worthy of the practice, and of the effort around me. The pressure dropped all at once and made room for a physical joy, a happiness that moved through the body like warmth. I told myself: I did it. And everything became bright, even the most ordinary details.

What moves me, looking back, is how completely insignificant it all was. An audition room, a child at a piano, a few dozen people. Nothing, objectively. And yet, for me and for my mother, it was the center of our concerns. The center of the world. I find it beautiful, that human ability to make certain hours sacred. To protect them, to prepare them, to inhabit them together. These moments mobilize us. We love each other in the building. We help one another. We protect one another. We give ourselves permission to believe.

That day, I understood I wanted to become a great pianist. Not out of vanity. Out of loyalty. Loyalty to what I had felt. Loyalty to that changed look in the audience. Loyalty to my mother, to her way of holding up the world so I could hold a melody. Loyalty to that child who, after the bow, understood that the piano had just made him a promise, and that from then on, he would spend his life earning it.

Sincerely,

Sofiane Pamart

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