Elizabeth Sombart performs in prisons and care homes

She can fill the world’s great concert halls with her skill as a pianist, has recorded albums with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and shared the stage with opera stars such as Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli.

Yet Elizabeth Sombart can also be found at her keyboard playing Chopin and Schubert for the inmates of a prison or among the sick and aged in a care home. She plays in orphanages, for handicapped people and in the refugee camps of Italy and Lebanon too.

Sombart, 60, believes passionately in the healing, redemptive power of classical music, and sees it as her life’s work to take it beyond its traditional audience. Over the past quarter of a century she has given hundreds of extraordinary free concerts, for which fans in New York’s Carnegie Hall or Tokyo’s Suntory Hall would happily pay upwards of £30 a ticket.

Elizabeth Sombart has played the piano since the age of seven. Her unusual career trajectory is the result of a difficult childhood and devastating personal tragedy

‘Classical music is traditionally the province of the wealthy and the educated,’ she says. ‘I choose to give it to everyone, including people who have never even seen a piano, because it makes sense to share it with those who need it most. Classical music reminds us all of hope and beauty when life is at its hardest. Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Rachmaninov… they have the power to make you live completely in the moment.’

Married to a Swiss business tycoon, Sombart could be a society wife at her home on the shores of Lake Geneva. Instead, she is often travelling to performances or working gruelling hours at the helm of her philanthropic organisation, the Fondation Résonnance.

The foundation, which she launched in 1988, today operates in seven countries. Sombart and her staff give 500 free recitals a year across Europe. They focus on the great adagios, because Sombart believes slow passages of music are the most therapeutic. She is an expert in the science of musical phenomenology, which explores the relationship between sound and the human brain.

‘After I played at a prison in Nîmes, I received a letter from an inmate saying my music had made a space for grace in his cell and reminded him he existed as a person and not just as a criminal.

‘On another occasion, I was playing in a care home and a lady died at the close of Chopin’s Berceuse. The beep of her monitor was like a metronome and she passed away listening to the last chords of that beautiful lullaby.’

Sombart has played the piano since the age of seven. Her unusual career trajectory is the result of a difficult childhood and devastating personal tragedy, as well as her deep religious faith.

She reveals: ‘I was an unhappy child, lonely and lacking in confidence. Playing the piano gave my life solace and structure. I found it very consoling, which is how I know it has the power to console others.’

Sombart spends hours of her life at the helm of her philanthropic organisation, the Fondation Résonnance

Sombart spends hours of her life at the helm of her philanthropic organisation, the Fondation Résonnance

A youthful first marriage saw her fall pregnant with twins when she was 21, but she lost them both to a late miscarriage at about six months. ‘After my pregnancy ended all I wanted to do was to go to my piano. There is dignity and hope in music, no matter how dark the world seems.’

She later divorced and was alone for 16 years before making a joyful second marriage. ‘My husband is my Prince Charming – the day of our wedding I wore an elegant pair of diamante-covered shoes, and just as I was about to walk down the aisle one of my heels broke. So I was married with one twinkly shoe on – how much more evidence do you need of a fairy tale?’ she laughs. 

Elizabeth Sombart and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra perform ‘Adagio: Musique Et Lumière’ at London’s Cadogan Hall on February 2, cadoganhall.com

 



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