French singer-songwriter, composer, and pianist Daniel Lévi rose to fame for his performance as Moses in the musical Les Dix Commandements. Born on August 16, 1961, in Constantine, French Algeria, he grew up in the city of Lyon and studied piano for over a decade before releasing his first album Cocktail in 1983. During the '90s, he starred in the Catherine Lara musical Sand et les Romantiques, where he played both Alfred de Musset and Frédéric Chopin, and scored his first major hit with the Karine Costa duet "Ce Rêve Bleu" (1993), the French version of the Aladdin theme song "A Whole New World." The track was later released as a single and peaked at Number 3 on the French charts. He followed this success with a second studio album titled Entre Parenthèses (1996), which was heavily influenced by jazz and soul music. His big break came in 2000 when he portrayed Moses in Élie Chouraqui and Pascal Obispo's musical Les Dix Commandements. Released as a single later that year, "L'Envie d'Aimer" quickly became the most popular single from the musical, reaching Number 2 on the French Singles chart and receiving the award for Best Original Song at the Victoires de la Musique Awards in 2001. In the following years, Daniel Lévi capitalized on his newfound success with releases like "Mon Frère" (2001) featuring Ahmed Mouici, and "Ici et Maintenant," included in his 2002 album of the same name. Produced by Pascal Obispo, his fourth LP Le Cœur Ouvert saw the light in 2005. During this time, he also participated in the charity projects Noël Ensemble, Les Enfoirés, and Et Puis la Terre. Subsequently, Daniel Lévi devoted himself to numerous humanitarian causes and re-emerged in the late 2010s with the studio album Daniel Lévi (2017) and the compilations 50 et Quelques (2019) and Grâce à Toi (2021). He passed away at the age of 60 on August 6, 2022, after a long battle with colon cancer.
