EMILI RACKEMANN
RECENT PRESS
The exact lineage between Emili and those parts of her family tree that went to America isn't entirely certain, but Emili says she is descended from a branch of Rackemanns who left Germany for Australia at a similar time virtuosic pianists Frederic and Louis Rackemann left for America. According to Frederic Rackemann's son, who published a memoir of his father in 1885, Frederic's arrival in New York in 1842 caused a musical stir, within his abilities perhaps surpassing that of even his brother, who emigrated to the US in 1839.
"His performance was decidedly superior to anything of the kind that has ever been heard in this city, and his manner was characterized by that unassuming modesty ever the accompaniment of true genius," said one Boston paper, cited in the memoir.
According to a 2013 article on Frederic Rackemann for a Massachusetts paper, he chiefly performed and taught piano in New York City in the winters, while summering in Lenox, Massachusetts.
As well as being a pianist of renown, Emili also shares another love with her relative: a love of animals. His son writes of Frederic's great friendships with dogs, cows and cats, but most of all with horses, and he especially writes of his father's great love of their fine mare 'Grant', named after General Ulysses S Grant.
"He always knew my father's voice, the moment he came into the barn, and seemed to enjoy a silent communion with him while being stroked or patted, and eating the sugar or the apple which was sure to be ready for him," his son wrote.
​Like Frederic, Emili also showed an affinity with horses, having trained and competed seriously in dressage throughout her childhood and young adulthood.
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Perhaps such similarities are coincidence, but Emili isn't one to believe that. Around five years ago she was commissioned by the Mendelssohn Chamber Orchestra, based in Leipzig, to transcribe Clara Schumann's Piano Concerto in A minor. The 1835 world premiere of this concerto in Leipzig also featured Bach's D minor concerto for three pianos, performed by Schumann, Felix Mendelssohn and Louis Rackemann.
"I remember when I got the email, I thought, isn't that unusual?," Emili said.
"It was only a few months before that I was thinking 'what am I meant to do?' And that came in, almost a confirmation to say you're on the rights track and just keep going."
It's just one example of how her heritage influences and drives Emili's own musical journey.
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"Even thought I want to do all of these different kinds of music, that core aspect of self would be classical composition. That's what defines deeply who I am in terms of my lineage. There's such a beautiful journey there that's come through our family. You want to honour that and you're proud of that," she says.
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Despite their prominence at the time both brothers have largely been forgotten. They may have charmed audiences in their own time, but unlike the composers they worked with, they left little musical record. Whereas Emili is a prolific composer, having created 10 albums for solo piano - from the 2011 Frunchroom, with its aggressiveness and spiky harmonies, to the Liszt-esque Queens English (2017) and the most recent minimalism of Meraki, released in 2022.
When Emili spoke with me, she was putting the finishing touches on her upcoming five-track EP, Under The Ether, which she indicated was a continuation of her current more minimalist works, as opposed to a more classical outing she plans to work on over the next year.
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"There's always a story to tell. For me, that's at the root of what I do. To compose about stories of history, but also to connect people and just feel that interconnection with human beings.
I honestly think sound is the common thread that really connects us all," Emili says.
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Article written by Brodie Everist
- North East Living Magazine
Where does inspiration come from? Musicians and composers, ever practical, would say it's the thousands of hours of practicing their craft that make it. And they're not wrong. But practice is more like building the tools that catch those moments of inspiration as they flutter by, and that craft them into a well-structured composition. So where do those fluttering inspirations come from, and what drives the musician to capture them?
For Australian-based pianist and composer Emili Rackemann, the answer partly lies in her past, her life growing up and perhaps even her lineage. She counts as her direct ancestors Frederic Rackemann and Louis Rackemann, German-turned American pianists who rubbed shoulders with famous European composers Clara Schumann and Felix Mendelssohn.
Closer to home, growing up she was steeped, not only in music, but in natural pastoral Queensland and the heritage of her forebears, which she believes resonates in her music today.
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The 42-year old pianist and composer was born in Toowoomba in Queensland, and was playing music early, influenced by her mother and father who performed in theatre and the Toowoomba Choral Society, conducted by well-renowned mass choir conductor Mansel Jones (AO). She then started attending weekly singing lessons with her parents when their teacher Mansel recommended her skills be further honed.
"I started playing around with little short pieces - I was about three and just had this affinity with the piano," she said.
Following her grandfather's unexpected passing, the family moved to their 25,000 acre cattle station name Lorna Vale in Central Queensland, which was in her father's family since 1959. The family also owned a resident property in Rockhampton, Emili said, but they spent much of their time at 'Rackemann Hut' at the cattle station, where she had regularly visited prior to moving north.
"Since I was a tiny tot we were going up to the cattle station every holidays. We didn't have any electricity, it was all kerosene lanterns and very basic living. Anything we ate was basically out of tins or had to be freshly killed in terms of meat. We only had a generator, but that never worked. (We were) going through a long drought, so we had to share bath water which was heated using a copper."
According to Emili, her grandmother Lorna May Rackeman, was born in 1916 in Wooroolin, in the South Burnett Region of Queensland. "My grandmother, when she'd come with us, was always taking so much pride in the hut, keeping it so clean."
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Both Emili's grandfathers were remarkable in their own way. Her grandfather on her mother's side was Robert Broughton Lansdown (AO, OBE), a private secretary to Robert Menzies in the 1950's who rose to become the secretary of the Department of Communications in the 1980's and chairman of Australian Post. According to Emili, her other grandfather, Arthur Georg Rackemann, was serving as a Queensland detective prior to moving to Papua New Guinea where he continued this role in addition to becoming almost police commissioner for New Guinea Police Force and Royal Papuan Constabulary, before returning to work on their then new cattle station, Lorna Vale. Both Left their mark on the budding musician.
"Both grandfather's were so refined and took so much pride in what they did," Emili said.
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The move to Rockhampton didn't stop Emili's musical development - if anything is was enhanced by the city having a thriving music culture at the time, she said.
"There was this strange dynamic of a rural beef capital of Australia, and then you've got these young kids who absolutely were devoted to music."
Marrying that contradiction was difficult when she attended university to study music, she said, but ultimately found it forms part of the tapestry of her music.
"I think these two cultures really merge together. I had something within me that was very creative and I really appreciated that dynamic of the rural aspect of life; being able to jump in a gown to perform in a concert hall, but the next day it's out on the cattle property, mustering cattle in 42 degree heat. There was something really special, creatively speaking, in that journey," Emili said.​​​
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