Upon the back of the tango and the waltz I arrived. My preference would have been the tam-tam, the soul of my forefathers. I had no say in the matter. I was much too small even to jingle. The only sound I could make was a gluttonous rattle, a sign of satisfaction at my mother’s breast. My mother’s love for classical music manifested itself in her constant recitals, filling our house with her hearty operatic voice, from day break till sundown. However, Sinatra’s My Way and Gloria’s I Will Survive became my companions when my father first held my tiny wrist in one hand, the other on my waist, and lead me, a disjointed little doll, across the hall and into a tango step.

Saturday Night Fever, now my favourite moment of nostalgia, cooled down many a hot night under a starry sky, while Grease was a musical accessory never to be without. I would have liked to have invented a soft kind of music solely to dispel heavy metal.

As time passed my perception of the world changed. I found that my music tastes were embedded the treads of the cultures in which I lived and of those I’d visited. After all my travels, I can easily say that if I had to choose a universal currency, music would be my preferred choice. If I had to choose a universal language to be spoken throughout the world it would be that of classical music. There is no other kind of music that envelops me so absolutely, nor can mirror the sea of emotions that engulfs my life.
There are no other melodies that can burst me open with passion’s kaleidoscopic colours, no other sound as cunning as an imitator of nature. No other vibrations of the air can interpret so accurately the vast range of sensations that pass through my body at any given moment, or indeed, induce them.

Whatever circumstances I find myself in, no matter where I am in the world, I will have my mother’s voice and my father’s tango steps resound in me.
Whether I can in fact ‘hold a note’ or ‘cut a rug’ is another matter!

Marcele Roujade