Harriet Stubbs on Life After ‘Living on Mars,’ Swimming with Nick Cave, and Taking on Beethoven

In July of 2024, Harriet Stubbs first noticed what she believed was a mild form of carpal tunnel in her hands. During the year, the British-born, New York City-based pianist noticed her condition worsening and decided to rest her hands, even going so far as to take a break from playing, as a remedy.

“I kept resting and it just wasn’t working,” shares Stubbs. “And then it got to a point where I couldn’t even send a text message.” The final straw came when Stubbs was forced to turn down a tour in August of 2025 because she could not play. A month later, the symptoms progressed, and she was unable to text with either hand. Stubbs was later diagnosed with ulnar nerve compression, a nerve injury, which, if left untreated, may have impacted total movement in both of her hands, jeopardizing her ability to play piano.

“It wasn’t even about not being able to play at this point,” recalls Stubbs, who underwent surgery during the fall of 2025 and had her first performance shortly afterward. “It was about not being able to perform basic tasks. I couldn’t even hold keys or a phone in my hand.” Some people struggled to understand how it was possible,” when Stubbs would joke, “I’d love to come meet you, but I don’t have any hands at the moment.”

A year before she first noticed her hand injury, Stubbs released her second album, Living on Mars, a collection of interwoven classical-rock compositions, featuring spellbinding arrangements of the Beatles’ “Blackbird” and Coldplay’s “Yellow,” along with Beethoven’s “Pathétique” and homages to  composers Frédéric Chopin and Leopold Godowsky along with Johan Sebastian Bach and Glenn Gould, all bookended by David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” and “Life on Mars.”

An interplay between the two genres and literature, the album is a continuation from Stubbs’ 2018 debut Heaven and Hell: the Doors of Perception, inspired by Aldous Huxley’s 1954 autobiography The Doors of Perception, along with his 1956 essay Heaven and Hell and William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell from 1793.

Videos by American Songwriter

“It was about making the point that literature and classical music and rock and roll are all one part of the same thing, and wanting to express that,” says Stubbs. “And it’s the idea of changing perception, playing with the idea of perception, or reframing it, which was what [William] Blake did so beautifully.”

Living on Mars was more informed by a form of escapism and some fascination with Mars, ancient playwrights, and Bowie, whose longtime keyboardist Mike Garson produced and arranged the album. “It was also about reaching out and living in something uplifting and outside of the norm,” she says, “and what it means to strive for the impossible, and the idea of Sophocles and flying so close to the sun.”

The album also features a piano arrangement around Nick Cave’s 2013 song “Push the Sky Away.” Stubbs first met Cave in 2022, after returning to London during the pandemic. Both avid wild swimmers, the two met at a lake in London and became regular swim partners and friends, talking about music, philosophy, literature, and more.

During one of their swims on New Year’s Day 2023, Cave helped elicit Stubbs’ next album, which became Living on Mars. “Nick says, ‘I’m going to start writing my new album today,’” recalls Stubbs, referring to Cave’s 2024 release Wild God. Then Cave asked about the album Stubbs started working on before the pandemic. “He says, ‘What happened to your album? You should really just get on with it.’”

At the time, Stubbs had half of the songs ready and called Garson, who helped piece together an arrangement around “Push the Sky Away,” which was sent to Cave for approval; Cave also helped with the sequencing of the album. “It’s a thank you to Nick for bringing this project to life,” says Stubbs, who says the track became the “centerpiece” of the album.

Moving into her next musical phase, Stubbs is exploring what she calls the “cost of enlightenment’ and, she adds, what it takes to remain in science, academia, and music during a time of disinformation on her next album. “It’s the idea of striving for something greater than us at a time when the world feels turned upside down, and continuing regardless, to turn it back around,” says Stubbs.

“The cost of that is dedicating your life to something that is based in fact or in service to the world in some way, whether that be medicine, journalism … I’m not just talking about music,” she adds, “but all the things that require us to continue against the grain and the importance of that and what it costs.”

Now two albums in, Stubbs says she’s become more confident with improvisation and is still working out ways to incorporate it. “I’m a classically trained musician who wanted to position my work in spaces, and to people that wouldn’t normally listen to it,” she says. “That’s still very much who I am, but I also love the idea of being able to expand with the next record into like arranging and writing.”

Stubbs, who received a British Empire Medal (BEM) for her concert series during the pandemic, is also returning to a more classically driven project, centered around Ludwig van Beethoven’s later works. “I’ve really loved doing late Beethoven,” she says. “I love the intellectual challenge of the fugues within a romantic pastiche. The late Beethoven sonatas are about overcoming grief, and the relationship between life and death, and all of that complexity really speaks to me.”

She continues, “When I thought that I wouldn’t be able to play again, I started learning them, thinking that they would be the last thing that I ever played, so it’s interesting that it’s what I chose to record now.”

Beethoven’s final sonatas were written at his home in Vienna during the final stages of his hearing loss and before his death in 1827. “What an act of service to music, to write something you will never hear or get to appreciate in the same way as the people that will go on to play it,” says Stubbs of Beethoven’s final works. “What a life of service and dedication to something greater than yourself.”

Set to go on tour in 2026, Stubbs is looking forward to finally sharing Living on Mars, and new and older pieces, alongside visuals, dance, and more accompanying her sets. After a tumultuous year, everything has come full circle for Stubbs, who recently received a green card granting her permanent residency in the United States.

“The music is so much bigger than me that it doesn’t matter how hard it is or whatever it takes,” says Stubbs. “That will always be where I am. And that certainty, it’s deeply reassuring.”

Stubbs adds, “I feel like a completely different human being now. I’ve been given everything anyone could ever want because I’ve been given my hands back, and I know that all I needed was to be able to do everything that I’m meant to do. I’ve got that in front of me now, and I can see it all coming together.”

Photo: Drew Bordeaux