Art Music & Culture Music
Before we moved to Nice we never realised how vibrant a live band scene there is here. Around the Old Town several live acts of varying degrees of quality can be heard warbling as you wander through the dusky streets. The band which grows from strength to strength over the last few years is Merla. Headed by David Zincke, with cover boy looks and a dulcet voice, the band tends to hide its light under a bushel.
Struggling with a somewhat hectic schedule in February, Zela kindly agreed to take time away from her busy engagements and meet me in Nice. Our location? The very splendid Negresco Hotel on the Promenade des Anglais. Once settled in our plush seats and having each succombed to an irresistable chocolate gateau, I began asking Zela how her love of chamber music came about. She smiled and explained how it had always characterised her professional profile even from an early age by performing with her sisters, pianist Mona and violinist Lesa, as the Terry Trio.
As their 26 year old son, Jonathan, left their New York City apartment to start his Fulbright Scholarship in music composition in Paris, his parents, Helene and Sheldon Schiffman had two worries: the first was that relations between France and United States were now at the lowest ebb in years and second was the fear of (mostly anti-Zionist) anti-Semitism in addition to anti-Americanism reports in the U.S. on an almost daily basis.
Born near London, England in 1933, Jil was just six years old when she was sent away from home and found herself in a boarding school for the very first time. With the threat of World War II many families were torn apart as children where ushered away from cities and into the safety of the English countryside. Like them she was devasted.
Solace was found in a large grand piano she discovered in the school hall. Lifting the lid, she started playing a few notes and a passion was born that would last a lifetime.
