My Memoir

My memoir on sale at 

 Symphony Hall Birmingham

I'm looking forward to being back in Birmingham on Wednesday October 28th, to autograph copies of my memoir A Life Painting Music and the new Norman Perryman Collection of fine art prints and greeting cards of a selection of my paintings of famous musicians. You will find Valery Gergiev, Andris Nelsons, Luciano Pavarotti, Bryn Terfel, Bernard Haitink, Yehudi Menuhin, a young Simon Rattle, The Mahler Experience and more.

The Symphony Hall Collection started in 1990 after a conversation with Director Andrew Jowett about my passion for painting musical subjects. His commissions to paint some of the musicians he had programmed for his first season eventually led to a collection of twenty-eight large watercolours and the 200 x 160 cm. canvas The Mahler Experience that illustrates my book cover. But my memoir also describes the making of many other works inspired by musical encounters worldwide. Each one has its own tale. Read my book to get the whole story!

For the next six months, you can purchase any of these new products exclusively at Symphony Hall, place orders at Giftshop@thsh.co.uk or phone +44(0)1216445144. Watch this space for alternative sales locations later next year.

On 28th you will find me in the foyer, during the afternoon, before the evening concert and during the interval (but not after the concert). 

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Creative freedom in 2019!

Creative freedom in 2019!

If you can't read this, turn it anti-clockwise. 

It says, of course 

Creative freedom in 1990

Thirty years ago, on my New Year's card of 1989/90, my long splayed brush was not just painting graffiti on a wall - it was my own simple way to slash through the wall of political and cultural prejudice, to freely calligraph a message of optimism, a call for creative thinking in whatever language you speak, write, sing, play or paint; a call to claim freedom from a disastrous political system.

In November 1989 the Berlin Wall came down and we were all carried away with excitement about the consequences. That first celebration of German unity in Berlin saw Rostropovich playing the Bach Cello Suites at the Wall and Leonard Bernstein at the Konzerthaus Berlin conducting Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with the final Ode to Joy, changing the words from Freude! (joy) to Freiheit! (freedom). Here he is in action in 1989:

                                          https://youtu.be/IciKr8NUmKs.

But despite our hopes and tears of joy, 

thirty years later, has very much changed? 

Let us not despair. 

These words must still be writ large on walls everywhere.

Think creatively! 

Think out of the box! Through the wall!

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An edited version of my blog of 2015