An orchestra of household appliances, a pop concert with singer Luwten, and a gospel choir accompanied by top Dutch music. Plus a DJ set with lots of Faithless. Those who might think of something holy when they hear the term 'harp' can be surprised at November Music by Dutch harpist Remy van Kesteren. This 33-year-old genius has been playing jazz, dance and pop ever since he was discovered as a 5-year-old prodigy. I talked to him about his plans.
You've been very active in recent years, more in pop music and jazz, also as a composer, while the harp is by definition a classical instrument and there's still a bit of that idea of angels and white dresses and playing the harp beautifully, despite all your efforts...
Then I must interrupt you. The harp is not necessarily a classical instrument. It comes from folk music and has a very long tradition there. Every country has its own harp. In South America, a lot of harp is played. This is often very exuberant music and is often played in the streets. The harp is one of the most common instruments, together with percussion. In many countries, no one has that whole association we have with angels.
How do we get there?
I think it does have to do with painting. If you see old paintings, they are full of angels playing the harp. That image keeps returning at Christmas, inevitably there's always a naked baby with a harp on it. That instrument can't do anything about that. The same applies a bit to me.
Yes, I just play music and the way to learn that at the conservatoire was through the classical tradition. Before that, I started from the Irish tradition with folk music. That's how I learnt the harp. With the prelude and reenactment of all these stories. Because in folk music, the story and the music go hand-in-hand.
How did you come by this Irish tradition? You discovered the harp when you were five.
My mother listened to that music a lot. Once she played with a friend, she was Irish and her husband, who built harps. I played after what the teacher played, which is how I learnt music in the first place. It wasn't until music school that I had to get my hands on books to learn to read notes. At the conservatory, I first got to know and appreciate classical music. Only much later did I start asking myself: why really, why do you do what you do and what music suits it?
Pop music
At one point, I became fascinated by the rawness and purity of many pop musicians. Whereas classical music is often about perfectionism, but I sometimes miss a bit of soul in the performance, in pop music I often feel that soul. This is also possible with someone who can't actually sing and plays a badly tuned guitar. Then it can still pierce through the marrow. That fascinates me.
In a crazy way, I see more depth there than in classical music at the moment. Of course, classical music is not only about perfectionism but that does apply in the corner I was in at the time, where you play with orchestras as a soloist. Then you often play virtuoso pieces with lots of notes. That didn't really make me happy. I'm just very curious. Recently, I have been working a lot with people from hip-hop. It feels like you suddenly turn a corner and discover a whole world. Then I realise that, above all, there's so much I don't know yet.
Most people have their pop music phase and that starts somewhere in puberty, so when they are 13, 14, but then you were at the conservatoire studying classical music. Do you feel then that you missed that time?
I did listen to that music, but there was really a kind of divide. Back then, I mostly listened to a lot of electronic music, like Faithless. I'm still a fan of that. I also listen to Moby. But I was still involved in a completely different world. Stravinsky and stuff, that was that was my existence until a few years ago, until I thought of making my own music.
Surely in the Netherlands we like to frame something, but I'm not into it myself. I float between everything and am open to everything. I sometimes play pop or jazz, but on harp. Then people say it's nice that I turn that into classical music. Funny, but that's the same as saying that someone who plays the saxophone always makes jazz. That's how it works in people's heads.
But you are not content with that.
Ik went against it very strongly at first, but then I thought: people should find out for themselves. Above all, I hope people will really listen. Many people think, if there is such a label on it: that's so not for me. But that is a great disservice to yourself. You are missing out on so much, because I am sure that for everyone on this earth there is a jazz record that makes you suddenly love jazz, and the same goes for classical music and pop music. The only distinction there is is between bad and good music.
What is good music?
For me, that's music that's honest, that it really has something to say and definitely has a drive in it, or a necessity. The main thing is that it's pure and that it touches me. Of course, that's different for everyone again, but an artist who has that, even if he plays Always is Shorty Sick, in a way that has something to say, it's good.
I spoke the other day Genevieve Murphy, a colleague of yours who also has a conservatory background. She is also making a move towards more danceable music, in her very own way. She wants music that sets her in motion, and sees that classically trained musicians are often unaware that they are also performers.
Sure. I did find it shocking, but at the conservatory I was never asked why I was making music. Only at my master's in Paris was I asked that question. When I asked other students later, no one really had an answer.
After all, that's why you ever started: because you want something with that instrument, want something with music, want to tell something. And yes, then suddenly you have become a kind of craftsman. I found that very bizarre. That question of why you make music now is so essential. Most people really have no idea.
Now to your residency: there are four different things lined up. Let's run through them: Leaves (Tessa Douwstra) is the most pop-like collaboration, the one you have. How did you get to know each other?
We first met at a concert of Binkbeats That was about five years ago now. Luwten is a super special artist, someone who dives into the minutiae and creates her own world. I think from harmony, from structures. That's how classical music works. She looks at music from a different angle. That brings me new ideas, ideas I could never have myself. For instance, she wants to hear one specific note. I then think: why can't more be made around it? And then she remains very adamant and eventually I hear that and think: I can just do ten times less. She really challenges me.
You also organise a Gospel evening with all great artists: Marcel Veenendaal & ZO! Gospel Choir & Martin Fondse. What do you have to do with gospel?
I met the choir at the 5 May concert on the Amstel and we've been friends ever since. They are super nice people and crazy singers. Together with Marcel Veenendaal, the singer of Di-rect, we also did a few things for TV during the pandemic. That combo went so naturally on both musical and human levels that we agreed to do more together. So that is now.
This is by far the most ambitious programme, perhaps of the entire festival. The production has quite a lot going for it because of all the different worlds coming together. My world, that of the composer of the Netherlands Martin Fondse, Stef Van Es on guitar, Marcel of course, and then I have a lighting designer, Jop Kuipers. There is absolutely nothing in that church, so we have to decorate it all with sound and light. I really want to make that a whole other world.
I arranged my own work for the choir. They can also sing insanely a cappella. So there are also some moments when I want to give them complete space.
Does that also produce religious feelings? Or is that or should we not think like that?
Music is my religion. In that sense, it is an appropriate place, but that's where it ends. Although "Praise the Lord!" will certainly sound from time to time.
Over to the Analogue Robot Orchestra. Why robots and not just a sample keyboard?
It is a project that has developed over many years since I met Jurjen Alkema in 2016. He is a lighting designer, but turned out to also make little instruments out of everyday objects, which he could control digitally. He found that more interesting than a video artwork where you put on a CD. I thought it was quite amusing. We kept in touch and I watched him build more and more of these devices. Then we started playing together, while instruments were still being added.
Now it is an eight-metre-wide and three-metre-high scaffold with 30 robots that all make the most bizarre sounds and that I can control myself with my feet and my hands and my left ear. This allows me to play all the multilayered sounds of my music on my own like an octopus.
You will end your residency with a proper DJ set. What can we expect?
A lot of Faithless I think, but also a bit of Moby. It will also be a night of old house, a bit of techno. And I will eventually use my harp as well. At first, I toyed with the idea of leaving the harp at home and just playing. But yeah, then no one will probably turn up. I also like the idea of using the harp in that very corner. It will be a set where people can dance. That seemed like a nice ending.
Good to know
English (UK) 
Nederlands 
Français 
