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"I know of no other artist who can catch the essential movement and meaning of an artist’s playing motion and gestures, no one who can capture them as well as Norman Perryman.  This collection is a tribute to his life-long dedication to translate music into colour and line.  In this way he translates not only the playing of the artist but even the music that is being played. "


 

 

In the early sixties Norman Perryman spent many hours at the Menuhin Festival in Gstaad, Switzerland sketching great musicians such as cellist Paul Tortelier, pianist Wilhelm Kempff, the legendary sitar-player Ravi Shankar, and of course Yehudi Menuhin himself and his pianist sisters Hephzibah and Yaltah Menuhin.  Later, the list came to include the youthful violinist Nigel Kennedy, pianist Melvyn Tan and cellist Colin Carr, then all students at the Menuhin School.  In 1975 he painted the great French cellist Pierre Fournier.

When the splendid new Symphony Hall was built in 1991 in Birmingham, England, Perryman was commissioned by the Director (Andrew Jowett) to create a collection of large watercolours (unframed 32 x 22 inches or 84 x 56cm) of the great personalities booked to perform there. This unique collection has grown to 29 paintings and now includes conductors Riccardo Chailly, Valery Gergiev, Carlo Maria Giulini, Bernard Haitink, Alexander Lazarev, Kurt Masur, Lorin Maazel, Andris Nelsons, Sakari Oramo, Simon Rattle and Klaus Tennstedt; violinists Sarah Chang, Kyung-Wha Chung, Yehudi Menuhin, Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zuckerman; cellists Yo-Yo Ma, Mstislav Rostropovich and Paul Tortelier; pianists Vladimir Ashkenazy and Alfred Brendel; Thomas Allen (baritone), Cecilia Bartoli (mezzo-soprano), José Carreras (tenor), Kiri Te Kanawa (soprano), Jessye Norman (soprano), Luciano Pavarotti (tenor) and Bryn Terfel (bass-baritone); and Evelyn Glennie (percussion).

Other watercolours of great performers include conductors Sir Georg Solti, Yakov Kreizberg, Leonard Slatkin and Plácido Domingo as tenor/baritone and as conductor, and violinist Julia Fischer

 


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Andris Nelsons
conductor
Bryn Terfel
bass-baritone
Cecilia Bartoli
mezzo-soprano
José Carreras
tenor
performance photos     performance photos     performance photos     performance photos
Valery Gergiev
conductor
Kiri Te Kanawa
soprano
Yo-Yo Ma
cellist
Kurt Masur
conductor
performance photos     performance photos     performance photos     performance photos
Yehudi Menuhin
violinist
Jessye Norman
soprano
Luciano Pavarotti
tenor
Georg Solti
conductor
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Plácido Domingo
conducting Carmen
Mstislav Rostropovich
cellist
Julia Fischer
violinist
Yakov Kreizberg
conductor
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Sakari Oramo
conductor
Alfred Brendel
pianist
 

Perryman writes:

“In this series, my aim is to combine my experience in portraiture with my passion for music, to create paintings which are not merely celebrity portraits, but which make you feel you can hear the music.  The background colors and forms, the abstract calligraphic rhythms in the paint and the gestures of movement and performance in these works, are therefore all just as important as the portrait.

Music, movement and watercolor have something in common. The floating transparent qualities of watercolor can suggest the transient, elusive nature of music and the illusion of movement, with a range of expression from the most delicate tones to tremendous energy and power.  The inspired spontaneity with which one paints a good watercolor is very much like the way you perform music, with all the inherent risks.  My essential source of inspiration in each of these pictures is the music, but other influences are Zen watercolor painting and some of the great American watercolorists.

The great performers portrayed were very happy with my paintings of them in action. Some of them phoned me: Yehudi Menuhin, who knew my work very well and owned several paintings, left a precious message: "Norman, it's just Yehudi, to tell you that I love the painting – one of the best that have been made of me. All my thanks". Conductor Carlo-Maria Giulini: "Is Giulini here. I want to thank you for this beautiful disegno". Conductor Andris Nelsons exclaimed: "That's exactly how I feel when I'm conducting". Soprano Jessye Norman sat for an hour signing prints of her painting for admirers, and word has it that soprano Kiri Te Kanawa had a dress made like the one I invented for her painting.

I’ve somehow developed an ability to empathize intensely with all of my subjects and to identify with their musical interpretations.  I would like to thank each of the great musicians who have, sometimes unwittingly, inspired and moved me to paint from the heart and to give form to these wonderful musical experiences”.

 





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