The Curse of concert coughing

The Curse of concert coughing

Cough, cough, cough! Right in the middle of the quietest, most ethereal part of the music. The coughing season is with us again!

Last night, as Andris Nelsons conducted a brilliant performance of Britten's Les Illuminations with Ian Bostridge and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, after each of the eight sections, the coughing erupted. The concert was being recorded for television, so Andris had to wait patiently each time until the storm of coughing, then the giggles at the coughing, had subsided. But after the ninth and final section he got his own back. He and Ian Bostridge held the silence for minutes......... so unbelievably long that one might have suspected that he was frozen, unable to move. You could have heard a pin drop, possibly because people thought there was something wrong. He was letting 2200 people know that yes, there had been something wrong, and this is how it might have been! When and how will people ever learn?

Recently, During the whole first half of my performance of kinetic painting Cloud & Light with Toshio Hosokawa, a young woman sitting in the front row, immediately behind me, coughed loudly without stopping. 

Last minute preparations for my performance of Cloud & Light, just behind the conductor.

Toshio Hosokawa uses a Buddhist concept to describe his music, as "a tone that comes from silence, it lives, it returns to silence". Well, forget it. How he (and I) kept going I don't know. I wanted to shout out "Hey, listen to the paintbrush!" This was not only a savage attack on our concentration, but a lack of awareness of the purpose of the occasion, as the rest of the audience tried to appreciate music and the silence. 

Japanese audiences of course, just don't cough. It's unthinkable - part of an inbuilt social awareness. And have you noticed that the musicians never cough? Even if they have tears streaming down their cheeks as they play. How do they do it? In this case, a friend of mine went up to the young lady at the interval and said: "You are sick. You must go home, now". She said she would think about it, but he was so insistent that fortunately she took his advice. 

What can be done about this curse? Free cough sweets at the entrance? A pre-concert announcement like "Please turn off your phone. No photography and no coughing allowed"? Mindfulness training? Any ideas? 

"Exactly how I feel when I conduct"

"Exactly how I feel when I conduct"

We did it! On Wednesday Birmingham Symphony Hall and the CBSO (City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra) organized a delightful post-concert reception, to present my painting of Music Director Andris Nelsons conducting Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. As he viewed the painting after the photo shoot, Andris said “It's an amazing piece of art and exactly how I feel when I conduct”. In case you missed it, scroll down for my own thoughts on the painting and a good reproduction.

I thanked Beethoven and Andris for the overwhelming inspiration of that concert, Jayne Cadbury for the commission and Chief Executive Andrew Jowett for putting together this huge collection (now twenty-nine!) of my works. On Thursday I gave a talk to the Friends of Symphony Hall about how it all started. You'll find the whole story in these blogs.

(Left to right) Andrew Jowett, Roger Burman, Jayne Cadbury, Andris Nelsons and myself.

It means so much to me that my subjects (especially these great musicians) feel an affinity with the results; and Andris was especially warm towards me.

Photos Alan Wood.

Andris Nelsons conducting Beethoven 7.

Andris Nelsons conducting Beethoven 7

On April 20th, 2013, I sat behind the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra with my sketchbook (quiet as a mouse, because they were recording Beethoven 7). I could see what they saw – a conductor full of intense joy and enthusiasm for the music, demanding and getting the same focussed engagement from every one of them.

Andris Nelsons, CBSO Music Director, is leaning forward into the orchestra, embracing the music with his arms, shoulders and whole body - just beaming out Beethoven! The light from the score is reflected in his face, intensifying the theatrical atmosphere of the occasion, as though he is standing in the opera pit. My painting is more than a portrait – it’s a painting of a conductor totally enveloped in this music.

Nelsons’ energy is phenomenal! He gives this music precision and power, yet air and transparency. So I’ve tried to keep a lot of space and dynamic freedom in my somewhat calligraphic painting. Sharing his excitement, I’ve made my watercolour splash and flow with the music. The colours rise from the strings, then zig-zag upwards like those soaring sounds.

Back in the studio, as I developed the painting, my brush-marks were literally driven by the dancing rhythms, the power and the delicacy of this music. I couldn’t have painted this without it. Because his own recording is not yet published, Andris suggested that I listen to the recording of one of his idols, Carlos Kleiber. Beethoven's Seventh Symphony is written in A major, suggesting to my synaesthetic sensibility a variety of reds, browns and purples anchored with blacks.

The performance that April evening in Symphony Hall Birmingham provided the ultimate inspiration for this large watercolour (84 x 56cm). It can be seen as a celebration of Andris Nelson's five great seasons as the Music Director of the CBSO orchestra (with another year and a half still to come) and it will be unveiled on November 6th. Commissioned by Jayne Cadbury and funded by The George Cadbury Trust, the painting will then become part of the Birmingham Symphony Hall Collection, that now contains twenty-nine of my “action-portraits” of the great musicians who have performed in this wonderful Hall.

A marathon of kinetic painting

Saturday's marathon of kinetic painting.

Saturday night saw my marathon performance of about two hours almost continuous painting, live to the music of Hosokawa and Bach with the excellent Netherlands Chamber Orchestra. And that after a complete dress rehearsal that only finished less than two hours before the concert. I not only survived, but judging by the applause from a sold-out house, it all went very well indeed! Especially Hosokawa's Meditation for the Tsunami victims touched everyone deeply. Here's a snapshot from the audience of Hosokawa conducting Cloud & Light for shō and orchestra:

The week had been crammed with creative discussion, rehearsals and staging issues, in my studio and in two halls. All followed by a film crew, for a documentary about my life and work. It so happened that Toshio Hosokawa's birthday fell on the Wednesday he would visit my studio to view the kinetic painting I had "choreographed" to his three works for performance three days later. So I also gave him a little watercolour on paper, dashed off the night before as a souvenir of his piece Cloud & Light.

That inspirational violinist Gordan Nikolić, brimming with enthusiasm, joins me with Mayumi Miyata and Toshio backstage for the obligatory photo afterwards. 

This was a fabulous project. Toshio's music relates so beautifully to the nature of my kinetic painting, that we already have ideas for further collaborations. Watch this space!