Maurane: Belgian singer who worked with Celine Dion and Johnny Hallyday

Preparing to take the stage earlier this month after a two-year hiatus, the Belgian singer Claudine Luypaerts, who has died aged 57, told her fans on Facebook, “I don’t know what sort of state I’ll be in. Be warned!”

Maurane, as she was known to her fans, was born in Ixelles, Brussels, to a musical family. Her father, Guy-Philippe Luypaerts, was a composer and director of the Académie de Musique of Verviers. Her mother, Jeannie Patureaux, was a piano teacher.

​Maurane was 18 when she took part in a stage show about the life of Jacques Brel. It brought her to the attention of French songwriter Pierre Barouh. Later, she sang backing vocals for Jo Lemaire and Philippe Lafontaine before releasing her own first album, the thoroughly danceable Danser, in 1986. Not long afterwards, she shot to fame, propelled by her performance as Marie-Jeanne in Michel Berger and Luc Plamondon’s rock opera Starmania.

Maurane went on to record 15 albums and appear in several films. Among her biggest hits were 1991’s Ami ou ennemi (“friend or enemy”), and 1998’s L’un pour l’autre (“One for the other”), which both earned platinum discs in France.

open image in gallery

She also recorded many popular duets, with artists such as Michel Fugain, Lara Fabian and Celine Dion. Maurane and Dion met at a charity concert in 1996. Twenty years later, they joined forces again to perform Edith Piaf’s L’Hymne à l’amour in a trio with Johnny Hallyday.

Upon hearing of Maurane’s death, Dion played tribute to her friend on Twitter: “She was an incredible artist. Her voice touched us and will continue to do so.”

Maurane was decorated for her services to the arts, becoming a Knight of the Order of the Crown in her in home country of Belgium and a Knight and Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters in France. At the same time, she worked hard for social justice. In 1993, she joined the fight against Aids, performing in Paris in support of the Sol en Si (“Solidarité Enfants Sida”). She also supported Restos Du Coeur, a foundation offering food assistance to the poor. In 2008, she recorded the Baltimore Project, to bring attention to the plight of hostages around the world, including French Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, who spent six years as a prisoner of Farc rebels in Colombia.

Away from the spotlight, she had a five-year relationship with fellow singer Pablo Villafranca, with whom she had a daughter named Lou.

Maurane’s death came as a particular shock to the music world and her fans as, just two days earlier, she’d taken to the stage in a homage to Jacques Brel, again, at the fête de l’iris (Iris Festival) in Brussels.

Her appearance at the festival marked the end of a two-year absence from the spotlight caused by an edema of the vocal chords.

In the Facebook post asking for her fans’ indulgence of her potentially rusty vocals, Maurane also announced that she had been working on a new album, to be released this summer, which she planned to tour in 2019.

A week after Maurane’s death, the four remaining contestants on Belgium’s The Voice played tribute to the singer with their own versions of her greatest hits including her haunting tribute to Glenn Gould, Sur Un Prélude De Bach, which subsequently returned to the top 10 of the French music chart.

At the same time, Paris Match reissued a 2003 interview in which Maurane talked about her professional ups and down and summed up her philosophy on life. “I’m really not a diplomat,” she said. “I’ve opted for a sort of sincerity, which, in my opinion, could be seen as being very raw and difficult to live with. But hey, we only live once.”

Claudine Luypaerts (Maurane), Belgian singer, born 12 November 1960, died 7 May 2018