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Published: 17 May, 2012
by ANDREW JOHNSON

Not many people can moonlight from their day job to be a classical concert pianist. Rupert Egerton-Smith can. More remarkable is the fact that he only really started taking his playing seriously nine years ago.

Before that the 39-year-old had scarcely tickled an ivory key in 10 years. Now he is considered one of the UK’s most promising musicians.

By day Egerton-Smith works as a strategy consultant for an Islington law firm. At weekends – or during his annual leave – you’ll find him performing in places such as St Petersburg or the Lebanon.

He’s increasingly in demand, thanks in a large part to winning the prestigious Concourse des Grands Amateurs prize in Paris three years ago.

On Saturday you’ll find him closer to home, at St James’s Church in Arlington Square, where he’ll give recital as part of Islington Proms.

It was a “difficult personal situation” – his marriage had come to a swift end – that really turned what had been a lukewarm affair with the piano into a passion.

He had stopped playing aged 20 when he went to Oxford University to study history.

In the aftermath of his relationship breakdown he dug out some tapes of his former playing and realised the person on the recording was actually quite good.

So he bought himself an upright piano and hasn’t looked back. “I hadn’t played. I didn’t have a piano,” he says.

His younger self didn’t really have an affinity with the music, he says.

He was born and grew up in Norwich. His mother, a teacher at the Royal College of Music, first sat him on the piano stool when he was six.

Her lessons were followed by those of a stereotypical monster of a music master who, if not quite striking his tender fingers with a stick if they went astray, did cause pain. “Had I not had those initial lessons (with my mother] maybe I wouldn’t have taken to the piano but I can’t say I enjoyed it,” he says. “Then I had a quite diffi­cult teacher. I hated those lessons – they made me cry.”

It wasn’t all bad. He names another teacher, Margaret Scott, with whom he is still in touch.

“I went to a very musical school and Margaret was a teacher I had there for five years. She was just the most phenomenal musician.

“She really unlocked the whole thing for me. We keep in touch. She comes to my concerts and I send her the recordings.

“She always used to say I was a victim of my technical facility. I can master the music, but a lot of playing is about the communication and the messaging and that’s what I didn’t really feel any affinity for. So maybe it was after having some challenging life experiences that the music began to mean a lot more for me. I can communicate it better than I did 20 years ago.”

Egerton-Smith was roped into the Islington Proms because he lives next door to St James’s. He moved to Islington two-and-a-half years ago from Putney to turn commuting time into practice time – he can be at the piano at 8am, put in 20 minutes and be at work for nine.

Saturday’s concert will see him play a mixed programme, moving from Baroque through to Romanticism.

“I’m starting with Bach-Busoni,” he says. “Busoni is a late Romantic composer who picked up a theme of Bach’s and built a 15-minute chaconne, as it’s called, around it. It’s quite a monster. You’ve got huge romantic structures built around a simple theme.”

He’ll then move through Scarlatti sonatas – “very crisp and articulate Baroque” – Chopin, and in the second half Brahms, Ravel and Debussy.

The big question for him now is whether to become a full-time musician. He’s putting the finishing touches to a CD he recorded on a friend’s music label – called Garrett – which he is hoping to release in the next month or so.

“I think there’s a time and you have to be ready for things,” he says. “Music is an increasingly important part of who I am and what I do.

“I am fortunate to be able to pursue a passion while also having a business career which provides a great deal of fulfilment. I do think it’s possible to combine two careers if you are really passionate about some­thing and have great support from those around you.

“I did a concert at St-Martin-in-the-Fields the other day with a friend of mine – a barrister and father of four who is also a busy conductor! For anyone thinking the moment has passed it’s important to remember one doesn’t have to follow the conventional route into music or the arts, and I’d encourage others to try this different path.”

• Rupert Egerton-Smith is performing in the Islington Proms on Saturday May 19, at St James’s Vicarage, 1a Arlington Square, Islington, N1 7DS. Tickets £10 (£8 conc), 7.30pm, 020 7226 4108, www.theislingtonproms2012.com