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 cardsof 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 atGiftshop@thsh.co.ukor 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).
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:
Thursday night I was one of thousands who watched, mesmerized, as Yo-Yo Ma playing the six Bach Suites for solo cello in the Royal Albert Hall. After this two and a half hour marathon, he took the microphone to say that in the light of the terrible things happening in the world right now, he wanted to play one more little song, a Catalan song arranged for solo cello by the legendary Catalan cellist Pablo Casals (1876-1973). Not only did Casals revive public appreciation of the Bach Suites - he spent a significant part of his life in exile, in protest against the Franco regime in Spain, playing in protest at the plight of refugees around the world.This Song of the Birdshasbecome a plea for freedom, said Yo-Yo, the freedom to live where you would like to live. What a beautiful and simple message in the language of music from one man on an otherwise empty stage.
Birds are free to migrate, singing to each other as they do. Are they trying to tell us something?
Yo-Yo Ma, watercolour 84 x 56cm, 1992. Birmingham Symphony Hall Collection
It's twenty-three years since I made this watercolour of Yo-Yo. Using the diagonal of the cello, this composition is based on triangles. Your gaze follows the dark tones down from the top right-hand corner to his face, listening. Then turns down the fingerboard where his fingers are delicately gamboling down towards his bowing action. It's all about balance.
Gijs Scholten van Aschat, an old friend of mine and one of Holland's most famous actors, needed an English native-speaker to play the role of a Mindfulness counselor in the 29 minute tragicomic Dutch film Jack (a Journey to Fulfillment). I was offered the part and thought "why not?" Gijs stars as Jack, who is desperately trying to combat his fear of failure, his frustration and pain as he tries to renovate his house (and actually himself). Instead of more pills, his doctor recommends the CDs of the popular Mindfulness guru Jon Sabat(no, not that other guy with a similar name).
photos and cinematographer Marjoke Haagsma
So I become the voice of Jon that Jack, during his emotional predicaments, can hear in his headphones speaking the wise advice that many of us have heard before and then forgotten: "Focus on the wonder of this present moment and on your own potential rightnow, accept yourself as you are..." and so on. Although Jack doesn't really have time for this stuff, the voice continues to haunt him. Jon even becomes his mainstay, support and inspiration.
But wait, people ask me - are you an actor? Well no, I just pretend. Ah yes, that's what actors do all the time, right? Ha, ha, it's amazing what you can achieve with such a gifted young Director as Jim Süter and with this fascinating script by screen-writer Jeroen Scholten van Aschat. Jim is amazing - he could gently talk me through the psychology of any situation and for him I would do whatever it takes. Not to mention the support of an experienced actor like Gijs. Playing opposite this guy in full emotional swing - and trying to stay calm, is unforgettable.
It was fun to be involved and fascinating to observe the making of this film, but more than that, getting inside this role made me reflect a lot on real life. We might laugh at Jack's pathetic figure as he gets ever deeper into the troubles he brings upon himself, yet his problems are uncomfortably familiar and he invokes our sympathy. Jon Sabat's message starts to make sense. I had to believe it to play the role. In fact, I needed it myself. I also realized that it reinforced something I've possessed for years - my own form of visual mindfulness, developed through kinetic painting to music - which can only be done (and viewed) by focussing on the now. This real-time art form carries so many risks, but if you dare take them - to quote the musician Nikolaus Harnoncourt - even on the edge of disaster you discover great beauty.
Film is related to my own kinetic painting in that it's a time-based art form. Film (or in German Kino, for the movies) and my continuous painting only exist in the present moment. Hence my affiliation to Mindfulness. The spectator focusses so intensely on the moving images because she/he knows that they are ephemeral. This exercise in heightened awareness takes you out of this world, my spectators tell me. Quite therapeutic. So am I a therapist? Nah....I just paint with the conviction that the synthesis of kinetic painting and music is good for my well-being - and for yours. It may well lower your blood-pressure or, in the case of the Poem of Ecstasy in the trailer below, get you really turned on!
This year is the centenary of the death of the composer Alexander Scriabin, who fervently believed that music and colour together have a special synergy. In his honour, here's a 9 min. montage from my performance with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Scriabin's Poem of Ecstasy. Go to full screen, turn the sound up, focus and enjoy each moment!
June 30th sees the première of Jack (a Journey to Fulfillment) in the EYEFilm Museum in Amsterdam. The first night is sold out, but for my Dutch-speaking friends, here's the link to the Keep an Eye Filmacademie Festival with other dates and screening times, to book online. If you can't get in, Jack will also be televised on Dutch KRO-NCRV in mid-September.
