Jacques Leiser is an international artists manager and photographer who has represented and collaborated with many of the world's greatest concert pianists, composers, violinists, composers and singers.

Biography

Very early in his life, Leiser became fascinated with photography, and for most of his career, he has never been far from his camera. Today his photo archives are a vast treasure trove of images of famous musicians and artists including Dmitri Shostakovich

Dmitri Shostakovich

Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....

, Aram Khachaturian

Aram Khachaturian

Aram Ilyich Khachaturian was a prominent Soviet composer. Khachaturian's works were often influenced by classical Russian music and Armenian folk music...

, Krysztof Penderecki, Heitor Villa-Lobos

Heitor Villa-Lobos

Heitor Villa-Lobos was a Brazilian composer, described as "the single most significant creative figure in 20th-century Brazilian art music". Villa-Lobos has become the best-known and most significant Latin American composer to date. He wrote numerous orchestral, chamber, instrumental and vocal works...

, Maria Callas

Maria Callas

Maria Callas was an American-born Greek soprano and one of the most renowned opera singers of the 20th century. She combined an impressive bel canto technique, a wide-ranging voice and great dramatic gifts...

, Sviatoslav Richter

Sviatoslav Richter

Sviatoslav Teofilovich Richter was a Soviet pianist well known for the depth of his interpretations, virtuoso technique, and vast repertoire. He is widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century.-Childhood:...

, Maurizio Pollini

Maurizio Pollini

Maurizio Pollini is an Italian classical pianist.- Biography and career :Pollini was born in Milan to the Italian rationalist architect Gino Pollini. Maurizio studied piano first with Carlo Lonati, until the age of 13, then with Carlo Vidusso, until he was 18...

, Krystian Zimerman

Krystian Zimerman

Krystian Zimerman is a Polish classical pianist who is widely regarded as one of the finest living pianists.-Biography:...

, Lazar Berman

Lazar Berman

Lazar Naumovich Berman was a Soviet Russian classical pianist. As a technician, Berman was extraordinary in terms of sheer evenness, control, and rhythmic panache, yet he always channeled his considerable craft toward musical ends....

, Vladimir Ashkenazy

Vladimir Ashkenazy

Vladimir Davidovich Ashkenazy is a Russian-Icelandic conductor and pianist. Since 1972 he has been a citizen of Iceland, his wife Þórunn's country of birth. Since 1978, because of his many obligations in Europe, he and his family have resided in Meggen, near Lucerne in Switzerland...

, Artur Rubinstein, Julius Katchen

Julius Katchen

Julius Katchen was an American concert pianist, possibly best known for his recordings of Johannes Brahms's solo piano compositions.-Early career:...

, Alfred Cortot

Alfred Cortot

Alfred Denis Cortot was a Franco-Swiss pianist and conductor. He is one of the most renowned 20th-century classical musicians, especially valued for his poetic insight in Romantic period piano works, particularly those of Chopin and Schumann.-Early life and education:Born in Nyon, Vaud, in the...

, Edwin Fischer

Edwin Fischer

Edwin Fischer was a Swiss classical pianist and conductor. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century, particularly in the traditional Germanic repertoire of such composers as J. S. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert...

, Annie Fischer

Annie Fischer

Annie Fischer was a Hungarian classical pianist.-Biography:Fischer was born in Budapest, and studied in that city at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music with Ernő Dohnányi. In 1933 she won the International Franz Liszt Piano Competition in her native city...

, Clara Haskil

Clara Haskil

Clara Haskil was a Romanian classical pianist, renowned as an interpreter of the classical and early romantic repertoire....

, Heinrich Neuhaus

Heinrich Neuhaus

Heinrich Gustavovich Neuhaus was a Soviet pianist and pedagogue of German extraction. He taught at the Moscow Conservatory from 1922 to 1964. He was made a People's Artist of the RSFSR in 1956...

, David Oistrakh

David Oistrakh

David Fyodorovich Oistrakh , , David Fiodorović Ojstrakh, ; – October 24, 1974, was a Soviet violinist....

, Mstislav Rostropovich

Mstislav Rostropovich

Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich, KBE , known to close friends as Slava, was a Soviet and Russian cellist and conductor. He was married to the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya. He is widely considered to have been the greatest cellist of the second half of the 20th century, and one of the greatest of...

, Otto Klemperer

Otto Klemperer

Otto Klemperer was a German conductor and composer. He is widely regarded as one of the leading conductors of the 20th century.-Biography:Otto Klemperer was born in Breslau, Silesia Province, then in Germany...

, Claudio Abbado

Claudio Abbado

Claudio Abbado, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI , is an Italian conductor. He has served as music director of the La Scala opera house in Milan, principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, principal guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, music director of the Vienna State Opera,...

, as well as Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso

Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...

, Serge Poliakoff

Serge Poliakoff

Serge Poliakoff was a Russian-born French modernist painter belonging to the 'New' Ecole de Paris .- Biography :...

, Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams

Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...

, Queen Elisabeth of Belgium

Elisabeth of Bavaria (1876-1965)

Elisabeth of Bavaria , was the queen consort of Albert I of Belgium and was the mother of Leopold III of Belgium and grandmother of Baudouin I of Belgium and Albert II of Belgium.-Family:Born in Possenhofen Castle, her father was Karl-Theodor, Duke in Bavaria, an ophthalmologist of...

 and Premier Nikita Khrushchev

Nikita Khrushchev

Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...

.

Leiser first met and photographed Sviatoslav Richter

Sviatoslav Richter

Sviatoslav Teofilovich Richter was a Soviet pianist well known for the depth of his interpretations, virtuoso technique, and vast repertoire. He is widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century.-Childhood:...

 while Leiser was working with the Artists Department of EMI

EMI

The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...

 records. At EMI Leiser had created the milestone series of the "Great Recordings of the Century". Determined to sign up Richter for EMI, Leiser sought out the Russian pianist during his first visit to the West (Helsinki

Helsinki

Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...

 in 1960). What followed this initial contact was a 37-year professional association and friendship one that included the creation of a remarkable photographic essay on one of the giants of the piano.

Early in 1998, some of Leiser's photographs of Sviatoslav Richter were featured at the Louvre

Louvre

The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...

 Museum as part of its Film Festival of Great Pianists of the 20th Century. Subsequent exhibits were held at Lincoln Center, the San Diego Museum of Art, at Portland State University in 1999, at the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara in 2001 and at USC

University of Southern California

The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...

 in Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 in 2002. A major exhibit, consisting of about 70 photographic portraits was displayed at the Music Conservatory in Zürich

Zürich

Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...

in October 2005. Future exhibits are planned in 2006 at prominent Swiss Music Festivals and at the Geneva Conservatory of Music.

Leiser is currently preparing a book of his recollections of music celebrities with whom he has been associated and will include numerous photographs.

External links

• Official Website