Ahead of his Totally Thames festival show, the artist tells us how it’s ‘an honour’ to be involved – and why piano composition holds ‘a certain historical weight’
Totally Thames festival is back for another year and presents a night of performances in the unique environment of The Master Shipwright’s House in Deptford.
This September, pianist Rob Hao, who has recently performed at the Sydney Opera House, will perform pieces inspired by water, with a particular focus on works from the 20th and 21st centuries, including Claude Debussy, Franz Schubert and Hao’s own compositions.
Crowds can expect, “not in any particular order”, a cosy Grade-II listed riverside venue (with a resident cat) and a potpourri of creatives: dance, lighting projections and music, says Rob.
Rob started learning how to play the piano at quite an early age, around 4 and a half – “or so I’m told”. But he didn’t take it seriously until he was 16.
He said: “In this way, it was a ‘late start’ and I did have to do lots of catching up later on but, on the other hand, not having an intense musical dogma at a young age is probably why obscure and contemporary repertoire forms a large part of my music-making now.
“I had dabbled in writing music as a teen (not very successfully), but similarly only worked more intensely later on at conservatoire when it happened to be some extra lessons I could take. But now, doing it more professionally has been lots of luck and randomness in the way things have developed.”
When it comes to composing his own work, Rob explains how he has played the instrument for many years, and for hours every day, and has developed a natural instinct for the physicality of the piano, “which makes it intuitive to write for”.
“Of all the instruments, the piano has perhaps the largest repertoire, so every time I compose there is a certain historical weight – probably both good and bad – but to write music, one has to be aware of what has come before,” Rob explains.
And of his feelings about bringing his work to Totally Thames this year, it is “an honour to be involved” and also to “share the festival with not only other musicians but a huge range of other art forms and community events”.
He adds that it is special to be able to celebrate the River Thames, which is “a centrepiece of life in London”.
Of the recital, he explains: “Similar to most concerts, I spend many hours practising and researching. Routine is good for preparation, and I like to work earlier in the day.
“But before all that, there’s a long list of pieces I’d like to play, and when opportunities to play these works appear, then I try to build the rest of the programme. This time, I’ve drawn upon various time periods as more recent works can project and reveal new aspects in older music, too.”
The show at The Master Shipwright’s House will be a solo piano concert, inspired by various themes of water. Rob’s main idea was to look at composers’ changing attitudes to rivers and water, which he says have shifted as our world has changed.
He says: “Almost every piece has, to some degree, also tried to recreate the sound or ‘image’ of water on the piano, which is a profoundly ‘un-watery’, hammer-and-string instrument.
“The earliest music is by Schubert who I think saw rivers as an antidote to the waywardness in his life. There’s also music by Debussy of the early 20th century. I find his music often sees water as something mysterious, powerful, perhaps terrifying but at the same time profoundly beautiful.
“And the piece which kickstarted this project for me, ‘Pebbles in the Water’ (composed in 2018) by Tristan Murail – a great heir to Debussy. His piece shapeshifts Debussy’s music into something very much contemporary, while scaffolded by history. For me, his piece pushes Debussy’s idea of water to its extreme with all the antagonisms of our world.”
And then Rob will perform two short pieces called ‘River Shanties’, which he has written for the concert.
He says they take the social role of old sea shanties as work songs, and he then applies them to themes related to rivers. The first piece uses the ending of George Frideric Handel’s ‘Water Music’, which premiered on the Thames in 1717, as its springboard, and the second is a play on Johann Sebastian Bach (his name roughly translates to a ‘stream’/’brook’).
The evening is set to be a musical haven that will look at how our river winds.
The Master Shipwrights House, Watergate Street, SE8 3JF
Sat 21st – Sun 22nd Sep 2024
6:30pm – 9:30pm
Please arrive for 6.30pm for a 7pm start
Full Price: £25
thamesfestivaltrust.org/whats-on/the-master-shipwrights-house-20703
