A New Voice for the Recorder - Q&A with Otto Hashmi

Next week - on Thursday 10th July, we are joined by a rather unusual instrumentalist at Brunel Museum. For as long as I’ve known DEBUT, we have never had a solo recorder player grace the secret concert stage. I am so excited to introduce you to a friend of mine - Otto Hashmi.

- Hannah x

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Otto Hashmi is a London-based recorder player and artist whose work explores the cultural contexts that shape music across time. Equally at home with early and contemporary sounds, he performs as a soloist, ensemble musician, and educator.
Otto is a member of Londinium Consort and performs live with These New Puritans. His recent soundtrack work includes Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light (BBC, 2024) and Sweetheart (2025), in collaboration with violist Liam Byrne.

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Welcome Otto!
You’re a super diverse & interesting multi-faceted musician. In a few short sentences - how would you describe yourself as an artist?

The current line which I've completed ripped from my website bio is that I am fascinated by the contexts that shroud music through all cultural expressions, and am driven by a desire to explore interpretations of sounds old and new.

As an artist I'm always looking to explore these points, whether through a detailed fusing of early music and contemporary club culture, or doing an impromptu feedback lap-steel guitar solo (as seen with These New Puritans in Berlin earlier this year).

Did you grow up in a musical household, or did you have to find it for yourself? 

 I didn't grow up in a musical household, although my parents and family have always been very supportive. My first exposure to playing music was primary school group recorder lessons at age 5 where our teacher (oboist Claire Hoskins) quickly suggested to my parents that they should look for an external teacher for me.

As a really small child my parents would play me Mahler's 1st Symphony and Portishead's self-titled album to fall asleep. I used to get scared by the start of the final movement in Mahler 1 and by the scratching sound in the intro to Portishead's 'Elysium', and I think that element of danger and putting fear in an audience has stayed as a ever present part of my performance palette, even if it's not frequently utilised.

When did you first realise music was more than just a hobby for you? Was there a specific turning point?

I was accepted to the junior department of the Royal College of Music when I was 8 years old - I think at that point it probably hit my parents that this was a bit more than extra lessons after school, but it took me quite a few years more for that pressure to sink in. I studied there for an entire decade (Recorder with Sarah Humphrys) which is a terrifying thought, but I really wouldn't have got to where I am today without it. There's a distinct pressure when you're living between two worlds, getting my state-school 30 mins a week piano classes on an old plastic keyboard (I think Steinways would be improved with a DJ button) and then heading off at 7am on a Saturday to learn at one of the top 3 institutions in the world. It's a real privilege that I'm still extremely conscious of.

I think for many kids going somewhere like RCM can end up as box ticking towards oxbridge applications or just something for the CV - I realised pretty early on that this was my path, no matter how brutal those early mornings were.

Photo of Otto at Brighton Festival by Jamie MacMillan

Were you always into electronic music, or did you come at it from a different genre first?

When I was about 10 years old I went to a family friend's house and was introduced to Guitar Hero 3 by a group of older kids. Fell massively in love with metal and made that my thing for a few years. As I got older I got really into black metal and more atmospheric sounds, artists like Xasthur, Lycia, Lurker of Chalice, which I think weirdly horseshoes across into the electronic world.

Electronic music I became interested in from a few angles. Stuff I would hear on the radio like Röyksopp's 'Poor Leno' and Mark Ronson's 'Bang Bang Bang'. First two Gorillaz albums. Weird acousmatic classical like Bernard Parmegiani's 'Des mots et des sons' and Stockhausen's 'Gesang der Junglinge'. But I really got into clubbing as a  teenager visiting family in Berlin and got into dance music there, DJs like Architectural and Len Faki which later led to more high energy stuff like ØTTA and Schwefelgelb.

I really appreciated the way that electronic sound sources give you a maximalist palette of the whole sonic spectrum, the highest pitched air of a sound down to throbbing subbass content. It was also a nice escape from the tiresome world of guitar music and the culture that goes alongside it. But recently I've found myself much more intrigued by acoustic sound sources in a world where AI content continues to throw its weight into every room whether we like it or not. It will take a long time before AI can replace a real human making a sound from a real acoustic sound-source.

Photo of Otto at Brighton Festival by Jamie MacMillan

What’s been keeping you creatively busy lately? Any new projects cooking behind the scenes?

I'm currently working on an album of Giovanni Bassano (c.1561-1617) 8 Ricercate from his 1585 publication "Ricercate, passaggi et cadentie per potersi essercitar nel diminuir terminatamente con ogni sorte d’istrumento" (Ricercars, passages and cadences to facilitate practising accomplished diminutions on all kinds of instruments). Those studies function as sort of a bible for learning about line, diminution, and cadences in renaissance performance practice. I find it fascinating how almost 500 years on those same studies are teaching us about core elements of the practice in a world which would be unrecognisable to Bassano.

The project will feature my own reimaginings of these ricercate for our treacherous modern world, alongside some TBC contributions from artists including the hyperpop heavyweight phonewifey (Jocelyn Campbell), ambient-soundscape saxophonist Si, composers Ozgur Kaya and Thomas Shorthouse and probably more (hopefully not less).

Historical performance focuses on a performer trying to step into the shoes of the baroque, renaissance, and earlier eras, but as an artist in the modern era, how do we fundamentally connect to something as primal as line and melody through the lens of an antiquated culture, whose mark is barely recognisable in our modern world?

I would love to be able to create something that can inspire new dialogue in this area of interpretation, whilst not being afraid to alienate and upset more conservative factions of the historical music world. We need a shake up.

I'll be performing two of these ricercate at my DEBUT secret concert on Thursday 10th July 2025, come along to hear them in their original acoustic format.

What’s one thing you're really excited about this year, musically or otherwise?

Going on tour playing with These New Puritans this Autumn. I'm so lucky to be able to perform such an eclectic range of gigs and concerts, but to be able to play the same thing night after night for a new audience each time is such a privilege (especially as I've been a fan since my teenage years). Yes, it gets so monotonous after a point, but I think it teaches you a lot about your own relationship with the music and allows you to reach a really 'zen' point in practice where the performance moves from an active exertion to a passive transmission - the music can finally speak without the anxious mind getting involved!

I haven't had the chance to tour in popular music since I was working with Suzi Wu just before covid, so very excited to be back in a splitter van and eat at overpriced service stations.

Be sure to catch Otto Hashmi at Brunel Museum on Thursday 10th July - there are still currently a few tickets available here!

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