Colin Currie performs Akiho's Percussion Concerto with Brussels Philharmonic

Colin performing the premiere of Andy Akiho’s Percussion Concerto in 2019

This weekend, Colin kicks off a five-date tour of Belgium with the Brussels Philharmonic. The programme consists of swirling dance music to traditionally usher in the new year, with a virtuosic surprise at its centre: Andy Akiho’s Percussion Concerto. Written specially for Colin in 2019, the piece uses a battery of instruments, including a toy piano, vibraphone, glockenspiel, kick drum, snare drum, car-brake drum, and even tuned rice bowls hit with chopsticks.

Classical Voice America said of the piece’s premiere: “Currie, who was the orchestra’s artist-in-residence from 2015-2018, performed each instrument with precision and panache, always impressively in sync with the orchestra… An exciting cadenza was both inventive and playful. Intensely complex rhythmic passages became faster and faster, with Currie blitzing the bowls with dazzling speed.” Colin himself remarked: “The new Andy Akiho concerto has completely blown me away, with its verve, joy, depth of emotion and vibrancy of colours. The superb orchestration and fabulous harnessing of symphonic power made a huge impression at the premiere, not just with myself but the audience, who went wild for the piece, and also the orchestral musicians who rallied enthusiastically around this work. In four movements, the percussion set-ups are clear and distinct, and very well-designed.”

You can catch the concert at Concertgebouw Brugge on 4 and 5 January, Schouwburg Leuven on 7 January, Flagey Brussel on 8 January, and CC De Spil Roeselare on 11 January.

Colin with Andy Akiho

Colin Currie Quartet performs two world premieres at Kings Place

Colin performs a programme rife with personal connections at Kings Place this weekend. The Colin Currie Quartet celebrates his native Scotland in the venue’s year-long ‘Scotland Unwrapped’ series, which pays tribute to music and musicians from the region and draws to a close this month. Colin has had a long association with Kings Place, having performed many times at the venue.

The programme features three Scottish composers: David Horne, Aileen Sweeney, and Anna Meredith. David Horne’s Pulse for solo marimba, which opens the concert, uses the human heartbeat as rhythmic inspiration and alternates unpredictably between extremes of energy and tranquility. This is Colin’s first time performing the work. Aileen Sweeney’s Starburst, performed here in its London premiere, infuses edgy, dancy, contrapuntal music with the composer’s traditional Scottish folk background. As suggested by the title, the piece takes inspiration from both astrophysics and childhood visits to the sweet shop, and was commissioned by Chamber Music Scotland, where Colin is an Ambassador.

You can listen to the Colin Currie Quartet rehearsing the piece here:

The third and final Scottish composer, Anna Meredith, has a double connection with Colin, as they played in the same wind band at their Edinburgh high school, and have kept in touch ever since. Anna has found success and was even nominated for the Mercury Prize for her high-octane and thrilling electronic music, and her piece Bumps Per Minute: 18 Studies for Dodgems is a typically full-throttle reinvention of the traditional fairground ride. The Quartet will play the piece in an arrangement by George Barton, a member of the Colin Currie Group.

A second world premiere from Ben Nobuto was commissioned by Colin specially for this concert. Daily Affirmation builds upon the mantra-like repetition of small and simple ideas to develop the four percussionists into “affirmation machines, dispensing joy in little packaged doses like those mechanical Pez sweets”.

The programme is completed by Steve Reich’s Mallet Quartet, a piece which among other Reich works has become a signature of the quartet. Written for two vibraphones and two five-octave marimbas, Reich’s typical canonic harmony creates a hypnotic groove.

The concert will be recorded for future broadcast on Radio 3.

Colin Currie joins the Hallé for MacMillan's Veni, Veni Emmanuel

Tomorrow evening, Colin plays the first of two dates with the Manchester-based Hallé orchestra, performing as the soloist in James MacMillan’s percussion concerto Veni, veni Emmanuel. Based on the Advent plainchant of the same name, the piece draws its inspiration from MacMillan’s Catholic faith, and has become one of Colin’s most-performed works. It uses an impressive battery of percussion instruments, producing tuned, untuned, skin, metal and wood sounds.

In a 2014 interview, MacMillan described how he “always loved the sonorities of percussion and continue to be impressed with the range of possible colours. I’ve learnt a lot from the players I’ve worked with… I’ve had the privilege to conduct a range of different percussionists and have observed how each brings different qualities to the same music. If I had to characterise Colin’s approach it would be a combination of accuracy and sensitivity that generates real emotion.”

In February, Colin will appear with the Hallé again for a three-day celebration of the music of living legend, Philip Glass. Colin will conduct musicians from the orchestra and from the nearby Royal Northern College of Music in Glassworks, and the following day in Frans Lanting’s LIFE: A Journey Through Time. Colin previously conducted the Hallé in their Reich festival earlier this year, which received a five-star review in the Daily Telegraph, with the Guardian describing how Colin “tightly corralled” the orchestra “with a percussionist’s instinct for meter”.

Colin Currie joins Royal Liverpool Philharmonic for Elfman's Percussion Concerto

Colin Currie heads to Liverpool tomorrow to join the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra for their concert ‘An American in Paris’. Conducted by JoAnn Falletta, Colin will perform Danny Elfman’s Percussion Concerto. The pair previously joined forces to record the piece for Sony Classical, which was released earlier this year, and will be signing their CDs following the performance.

Elfman wrote the Concerto specifically for Colin, praising him as “an extraordinary musician who would be great to collaborate with”, and the piece exploits his typically lush and cinematic style. “The audience were captivated by Colin Currie’s every move as he performed the piece. Darting across the stage between instruments, Currie is a true showman,” wrote Amy Melling (Abundant Art) of the US premiere.

The exuberant piece uses an impressive arsenal of percussion instruments (the soloist alone plays 12 instruments in total, including pots and pans, and a metal ‘gizmo’), and showcases Elfman’s classic sound so familiar from his many award-winning film scores.

2024/25 season gets underway

Colin has kicked off a busy 2024/25 season with a visit to the Bratislava Music Festival in Slovakia. Alongside the English Chamber Orchestra, Colin performed Sir James MacMillan’s spellbinding Veni, Veni Emmanuel. He will return to this piece in November with the Manchester-based Hallé, and in fact will perform with the orchestra four times over the season, joining them for a three-day festival celebrating Philip Glass in February.

His next concert with be with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, performing Danny Elfman’s Percussion Concerto. Written for Colin in 2022, the piece proved popular with audiences on a US tour earlier this year.

As well as performing as a concerto soloist, Colin will appear twice with the Colin Currie Quartet this autumn. Pupils at Wells Cathedral School will have a unique opportunity to perform alongside the quartet in November, while audiences at Kings Place in December will hear two world premieres by Ben Nobuto and Anna Meredith.

Tickets for all the concerts are available now.

Colin Currie Group - Turnage New England Etudes (UK Premiere), Reich, Wallin, Wolfe at the Queen Elizabeth Hall

"A five-star percussive performance... Almost as much drama and tension came from seeing what was happening on stage as from the sounds... the sheer virtuosity of these musicians as they navigated the rhythmic and metric complexities of the demanding programme, often sporting wonderful expressions of pure concentration, had to be seen to be believed." *****
The Times, March 2024                                                                         

"Currie conducted the premiere; elsewhere he was very much one of the performers... It’s music that depends on immaculate precision, and like everything in the programme both pieces were played with almost casual virtuosity by Currie and his colleagues."
The Guardian, March 2024

Colin Currie joins English Chamber Orchestra at Bratislava Music Festival

Colin joins the English Chamber Orchestra this week at the Bratislava Music Festival, performing Sir James MacMillan’s Veni, Veni Emmanuel, conducted by Kaspar Zehnder.

The work is one of Colin’s most performed pieces, and uses a battery of percussion instruments including tam-tams, two snare drums, congas, timbales, gongs, woodblocks and marimba, producing a range of tuned, untuned, skin, metal and wood sounds. Praised by the Financial Times as “a sure, confident, expertly engineered piece of soloist-versus-orchestra showmanship”, the piece is based on the Advent plainchant of the same name and was described by its composer as “a musical exploration of the theology behind the Advent message”. Seen and Heard International described Colin’s previous performance of the piece as “utterly spellbinding”.

This was Colin’s first concert with the orchestra. The most recorded chamber music orchestra in the world, the English Chamber Orchestra works consistently with the most significant musical figures in classical music, and particularly champions British music. The Bratislava Music Festival was founded after the Second World War to celebrate Slovakia’s rich cultural history, and has grown to be one of the most prominent cultural events in Slovakia.

Colin Currie features in Grafenegg documentary

ORF Topos has released a documentary film about the Grafenegg Academy, in which Colin is interviewed. An initiative of the Grafenegg Festival, the Grafenegg Academy encourages young talent by giving aspiring performers and composers the opportunity to collaborate with renowned musicians, including playing together in the Grafenegg Academy Orchestra. Colin has mentored and performed at the Grafenegg Academy every year since 2020.

Colin at the Grafenegg Festival in 2024