Marieke Huysmans-Berthou has been travelling on a sailing boat around the world with her piano for 12 years, offering her art in a slower, more connected way to the regions and more respectful of the environment. Her project Pianocean allows her to compose and present to the public a poetic moment connected with the sea and open to everyone, as well as discovering cultures, histories and music, and making them journeys from port to port through songs that sail the world.
To achieve this, she had to transform her boat and design an electrical system that allows her to lift her piano on board, give concerts from the deck, and store it again while sailing in one of the aft cabins. There she has a small recording studio where she writes and composes songs in different languages. All tell stories of her voyages, which she then shares in great detail with the audience, and she also ventures into folk pieces from the places she visits, as happened last year in the Azores, when she debuted with fado.
Marieke is French, from the Brittany region, an area with a strong maritime tradition. Perhaps that’s why she doesn’t mind living on board half the year, since the sea fascinated her from adolescence, just like music. “The connection is unique, because, when you sail, time is the master,” she states.
She studied classical music and jazz and has been a professional pianist for 15 years, but she doesn’t like tours by bus and plane because “you play and then you have to leave quickly,” she confesses in almost perfect Spanish, though she insists she only speaks “a little bit.”
She has already experienced it and is clear that it’s not what she wants. Nor closed and dark venues where she can’t live and share with people, as she likes. She believes life is on the dock, where people stroll, play, interact with each other and with their loved ones, and that’s why she has chosen it as her amphitheatre.
Her aim is to bring music to unexpected places, like the port of Garachico, where she has been docked since Wednesday. Yesterday, she gave a concert that captivated those who were seduced by her voice and talent, experiencing a magical and unforgettable moment, as she intends.
At 18, she travelled around Ireland with her music and discovered she wanted to live like sailors and showcase her art more freely. She learned to sail, bought the sailboat, naming it Freedom, and installed her piano there, an inseparable travel companion since then, joined by Sebastián, her husband; her 7-year-old son and her cat, which wanders permanently between the deck and the two cabins.
Freedom is divided in two, and one side holds the small recording studio where Marieke composes. It has microphones and equipment that allow her to record her CDs and invite musicians she meets during her travels to work together. On the other side, the living cabin, which consists of a bedroom, bathroom and kitchen area, where the family spends several months of the year.
Reaching a destination means making very long journeys, taking at least 25 days. Perhaps that’s why connecting with local people is “essential” for her. She arrived in the Canary Islands a month ago. Her first destination was Arguineguín port, in Gran Canaria. There, she discovered the Mogán Neighbourhood Food Project and didn’t hesitate to join because she believes music and solidarity can go hand in hand. She offered three concerts where attendees were asked to bring non-perishable food items like rice, pasta, canned goods, legumes, milk, to be given to 80 families in need in the municipality.
Since Wednesday, she has been in Tenerife, an island where she will stay until Friday, when she will head to La Gomera. The last concert in the Archipelago will be in August in La Palma.
Pianocean is a different kind of musical tour. Marieke sells her concert to councils or festivals with the only requirement that they are free and open because she doesn’t want to set up bleachers, preferring people to stroll while enjoying her music. The sale of the CDs she records are her main source of income, along with donations from the public.
She has already sailed the Mediterranean, the west coast of France, Irish lands and, in January next year, she plans to cross the Atlantic to the Caribbean and reach Canada. In total, 9 months, the longest journey she has made so far. Afterwards, she would like to tour Greenland “and learn a new language” – she jokes – which will add to English, French, Portuguese, Spanish and Gaelic.
The expression “let her take her music elsewhere” is, in the case of this French artist, the greatest wish for those hoping to meet someone who has turned her passion for the sea and music into a life project.
A system to regulate the piano’s humidity and temperature
Marieke’s sailboat and her family’s lifestyle are harmonious, it has solar panels, and she and her husband maintain it, a task they manage when not travelling. While on board, the most important job is tuning the piano – which is not exactly easy – two hours before and after each concert, as well as controlling its temperature and humidity. For this, there is a small regulation system situated in front of the keyboard, indicating the level at any given time. When docked in a port, it also operates with electricity. This instrument, which she learned to play from a young age, requires maintenance and protection, especially when rain unexpectedly catches her during a concert, as happened several times in Ireland, for which she must be prepared.
