Great Music Makers

‘The art of music-making’, writes Michael Shmith, ‘is a frighteningly intangible abstract thing that is as easy to describe as it is to contain murcury in your hand. Music, a world of sounds and symbols seperated by silences, should be different every time it is played. 'Photography is excellent at providing evidence of the physical side of [musical] interpretation … however, to really portray the spirit of the musician, it takes an artist of fine talent, great experience and with great feelings sympathetic to his subjects and THEIR subjects.’ And the late Louis Kahan was such an artist. Not many Australian artists could boast of designing clothes for Josephine Baker and Colette in Paris in the 1920s or having served in the French Foreign Legion. Australian-born, and more than 50 years in Australia, Kahan sketched and painted musicians over most of this time. He sketched Toscanini sketched in Paris 1928; Witold Malcuzynski in Perth in 1948; the young Pavarotti here in 1965; the conductors Sirs Adrian Boult and Malcolm Sargent and Igor Stravinsky - they are all here and many more. The more than 80 portraits of musicians are held in the collection of the Victorian Arts Centre for local and international visitors to see and appreciate. This book records them for a worldwide audience.