Black Rain

Black Rain

August 6th has passed again, the awful day when in 1945 the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, creating unprecedented destruction and a horrible death for many thousands. And a dramatic warning that mankind could now easily annihilate itself. The radioactive fallout from that bomb - the "black rain" - became the title of a Japanese film, for which Toru Takemitsu composed his beautifully tragic music.

On that same date in 2007, when I was performing live kinetic paintings to Takemitsu's Black Rain in the South Korean Great Mountains Music Festival, that disaster felt very close indeed. Only just across the Sea of Japan in fact. Thousands of Korean forced labourers in Hiroshima also died from that bomb and some of their descendants were watching our performance on television.

The brilliant young string-players Sejong Soloists and I joined in paying tribute to all those victims and our audience was deeply moved. I felt a deep identification with Takemitsu's music and grateful for the opportunity to make a statement in my own visual language - the language of the brush, that my Korean audience understood very well. 

That terrible event of August 6th 1945 was a news-flash that made all other news pale, although its significance was not yet fully understood. Even though today's power-wielding maniacs may be unable to "see the light", we artists need, more than ever, to continue to speak, play, paint this message - an annual reminder of the fragility of human life. Words fail me, so here's the five-minute video of my studio painting rehearsal for Takemitsu's Black Rain, (with acknowledgements to Marin Alsop's recording of his Three Film Scores) with the Bournemouth Symphony). Turn the sound up and play it full screen.

(Below) Two images from Black Rain, by Toru Takemitsu. Total devastation. In the final image, the red sun has turned white.

More next time on another upcoming project with Sejong. 

Kaddish

Kaddish

It was so inspiring to perform again with Daniel Hope and Sebastian Knauer on July 8th, this time in the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, as part of Daniel's concert series "Familienstücke" in Lübeck. We did Walton's thirty-minute Sonata for Violin and Piano and it went like a charm, with a lovely togetherness and synergy. I found that the music was thoroughly coursing through my veins and this confidence provided space for the occasional improvisation.

Then we did Maurice Ravel's Kaddish, one of his Deux mélodies hébraïques, a Jewish prayer of mourning and praise. Daniel introduced this work with a poignant story about his dear friend and mentor the late Yehudi Menuhin. After performing in Düsseldorf together on March 7th 1999, Yehudi encouraged Daniel to play an encore and he spontaneously chose the Kaddish. Yehudi listened sitting in the orchestra. It turned out to be their last concert. Five days later Yehudi passed away. 

I had long wanted to create and perform a piece in honour of Yehudi, in memory of a dear friend, the first great musician to invite me to perform together. Daniel gave me the perfect opportunity in Lübeck and as I painted this mournful and agonizingly beautiful work, I found it difficult not to be overcome with emotion, as my kinetic colours flowed gently away, for ever. Then a very slow fade out, to a hall in total silence. We had created a worthy tribute.

Here is the five minute video of my studio rehearsal, using Daniel's passionate recording with Jacques Ammon.   

Breathless

Breathless

Eighty-three years ago today I came into the world blue in the face. (No, not because of the political situation in Europe in 1933). The midwife had to untangle the umbilical cord from around my neck before I could gasp for my first breath. It was a home-delivery and she then gave me sips of brandy from a spoon! Ah, there you are then, my family likes to joke - with the characteristic Perryman sense of humour - that explains the brain-damage. That first struggle to make myself heard and seen was to be one of many over the years and I haven't finished yet! That's an artist's lot.

So I'm still breathless, racing against time, to give creative form to so many more ideas before my time runs out, yet I'm also pleasantly surprised that I'm still going strong. Happy to have found my form in time-based art: in live kinetic painting, cradled in music. It's quite a challenge, but I love it. But why do you make life so difficult for yourself, they say. Um, I was born that way, ha, ha. Actually, kinetic painting is probably the ideal therapy for me. Not only does it boost my dopamine levels. As any Asian calligrapher will tell you, it's your breathing that gives every stroke of your brush beauty and power.

My own performing art-form is, by its very nature, continuously moving on, passing by, short-lived. Afterwards, there's nothing left, just like music. What a pity? Not at all. Life is like that. Those audio-visual sensations will live on in the hearts and memories of thousands who have watched my ephemeral art form. Yes, I do love it when a viewer (usually a woman) comes up to me after the concert and says: "you just took my breath away!"

Here's the link to some fragments (perhaps not the best) from the exciting Berlin Konzerthaus performance on April 25th, the first with Daniel Hope and Sebastian Knauer, introduced here in Sarah Willis' reportage on Deutsche Welle TV . You can catch me at 3.09 mins into the video and again at 9.49. 

Our next performance is at the Schleswig-Holstein Festival in Lübeck on July 8th.

Four great milestones

Four great milestones.

Birmingham, Amsterdam, Geneva, Berlin. Four different projects in quick succession. Each a significant milestone that made me pause, look back thankfully and marvel at inspiring friendships - and at the closing of some great chapters in my life. 

In Birmingham Andrew Jowett retired as Director of Symphony Hall, where he commissioned thirty-two of my paintings. On stage for the unveiling of my painting of Andrew, as described in my previous blog.

Back in  Amsterdam I shared the Dutch TV music programme Podium Witteman with Lis Perry and Liviu Prunaru, both former students of Yehudi Menuhin and now concertmasters of great orchestras, to speak of our friendship with this wonderful man, then join in an audio-visual extract from Bach's Double Violin Concerto. Here's the link - it's in Dutch.

Norman Perryman & Lis Perry celebrate Yehudi Menuhin at 100.

 

Then it was quite nostalgic to re-visit Geneva, where I lived, exhibited, taught art, set up the Visual Arts programme of the International Baccalaureate, collaborated with left-wing journalist friends in NGO activities in the 1970's and made film around my kinetic painting with music for Télévision Suisse Romande in 1976. Wow, a significant period of my life.

Now, forty years later, I'm invited by WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization), an agency of the United Nations, to put on a performance of kinetic painting at a major conference in their beautiful new hall. How fulfilling. But was it a little bit of the devil in me to propose l'Histoire du Soldat (composed by Stravinsky on the Lake of Geneva in 1918)? How appropriate for this city of wealth and power, the story of how the soldier sold his violin (his soul) to the Devil, in exchange for a book that "tells you things before they happen" and provides "wealth untold"! Alas, the soldier become millionaire realizes that after all, in reality he has nothing. Terribly familiar? It was great to share the stage with the Ludwig Ensemble, but especially with my son Chris King Perryman, playing the Narrator. His mother Vivian King, whom I met in Geneva in 1974 when she was studying with the cellist Pierre Fournier, would have been so proud.

From Geneva I flew straight to Berlin, for a performance with Daniel Hope and Sebastian Knauer, one of the wonderful series in honour of our dear Yehudi Menuhin, who would have been 100 on April 22nd. There I met many old friends and his daughter Zamira, with whom I was able to share memories of my friendship with Yehudi, illustrated in my memoir "A Life Painting Music". Two of my paintings of him were illustrated in the Konzerthaus Festschrift.

The banner on the facade of Konzerthaus Berlin announces "Music heals, brings comfort and joy". That's what Yehudi lived for. What joy he and Daniel brought to me as I shared in this great festival! Our performance to a packed hall and discussion with audience was received with enormous enthusiasm - they just wouldn't let us go! Warmest thanks to the whole production team. The concert was recorded for television by Deutsche Welle and hopefully will be screened later this month.

Konzerthaus Berlin

Rehearsing with Daniel and Sebastian in the Kleine Saal.