Isaac and Nora: family music and the power to make Latin America fall in love

To develop their Spanish, Issac (15) and Nora (11) use a language learning app. Although as Nicolás Restoin, the father, says, what really helps to learn is immersion. That is why both youngsters have as an indication that in each fight – some homemade fight between brothers – they must do it in Spanish: that way those discussions would last very little, because they have fewer words for the filial battles. “When the children fight, we parents say: “in Spanish please”. Suddenly they shut up,” says Nicolás. And it is that it is difficult to fight in a language that is not yours, although they improve every day with new words and their Latin American tour is teaching them more and more.

Nicolás and Catherine Restoin, parents of Issac and Nora, met at a party at Catherine’s father’s house thanks to a mutual friend in the south of France. Her mother liked to have parties and listen to music in that house far from the center of the City. Catherine Restoin is not a singer, nor is she an instrumentalist, but she is the most important piece of the musical project Issac et Nora. She is always behind the camera, behind the cell phone, she is present. Something even more important, she is the person who chooses the repertoire of her children. That setlist full of songs that we instantly recognize in this part of the world. Catherine is the one who says: “I love that song, could you play it?” “To understand Latin music, you only need ears,” says her husband, Nicolás. Among her playlists called “Latin America” ​​or “Peruvian Waltz” Catherine kept the song “Olvídala amigo” performed by the great Carmencita Lara and that her children have already been in charge of disseminating in places like Russia, Turkey or Iran where she also has followers.

family music

When they had their first son, Issac, Nicolás took the guitar to the hospital: he had locked it since he was a newborn. The same thing happened with Nora, again running to the hospital with the guitar in hand. He always sang to them when they were little, even at bedtime, instead of reading them a story, the brothers had a melody that told a story.

Today, and after the video that went viral in 2019 with the song “Twenty Years” by María Teresa Vera, which currently has 7.2 million views, Nora is already sure that she wants to dedicate herself to this, to singing. Her examples to follow are Catalina de Monsiur Periné and Olivia Rodrigo. But alone, in her room, and true to her personal tastes, it’s K-Pop that excites her these days. Curious thing because her father was born in South Korea and although he was adopted by a French family before he was 4 years old, it seems that there is something in his blood that calls Nora. “Lima is my favorite place because she dances and listens to a lot of K-Pop,” she says. Isaac, on the other hand, is in a metal moment. Behind his melodious trumpet hides an electric guitarist who listens to bands like AC/DC, Iron Maden or Metallica. Both cases contrast beautifully with their performance on stage, but everyone in the family knows each other’s musical tastes and supports each other. In addition, they take care of their backs up or down the stage. “We are a family that tell each other the truth” Catherine is our first public, continues to tell the father of Issac and Nora.

The first video in 2019 in his garden in Brittany, a place that has an elusive Sun and whose cold can reach 4 degrees of temperature, Nicolás told his children to go out and record something taking advantage of that sun. Thus, the four of them came out, with Catherine as the person in charge of recording and who, at the moment of doing so, was putting her finger on the lens, the reason for the laughter of the little 8-year-old Nora who opens the video that was left the first time. From that attempt to filling theaters in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Brazil, among several others, some time has passed.

Nicolás always emphasizes that they are not professionals. He went to the conservatory, but it was a hard stage in his life, almost like his own Whiplash, that movie about the extremely demanding and hard music teacher with his students.

They don’t know why they like Latin American music, they just know that they like it. “It’s a feeling more than an understanding,” says Nicolás while he laughs and looks for the complicit look of his wife, always behind the scenes. In some YouTube videos, Issac and Nora make mistakes in the lyrics, pronunciation or play around while they sing, isn’t that something that would happen on a Sunday in the middle of the living room of a family used to singing? As authentic as that. I don’t know if Nicolás is right when he says that they are not professionals, but what I do know is that they are a whole family trying to sing our own melodies and themes like someone who sings lullabies to a Latin America with insomnia, that is more than being a professional and there is nothing as valuable as family music, whether in French or Spanish.