Serge Koussevitzky

SERGE KOUSSEVITZKY had a modest beginning in Russia as a virtuoso bass player. While still in Europe he studied conducting, and was selected in 1925 to bring fire and ice to the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In combative rehearsals, he wrenched a new BSO sound from his string sections. Slowly, the sound seemed to rise up from below. As a personality, he was distant and almost mythic in his podium behavior. I never had the opportunity to sit in his audience, but studying his long Boston tenure there emerged the man I have portrayed – other-worldly, dreamy yet rigorous, totally dominating his talented players.

Pen and Ink by Michael Johnson

Size: 11x14

About Michael Johnson
The piano has always attracted me as a high-wire act -- taking to the stage with two hours of solo music in a player’s head and risking the chance of audience approval or not. I began as a writer and foreign correspondent but have ended up probing this brave side of the pianist’s personality. I have written at some length about all the pen-and-ink portraits in this exhibit. Some of the drawings have been published in newspapers and magazines, others publicly exhibited. It is gratifying to see how communication just happens. My favorite medium is pen-and-ink on 300-gram mixed-media art paper. I try to avoid cross-hatching for gradations, but achieve the effect with a wash of water over the line on a sable brush.