The season for 2010/11 sees some very exciting programming and many adventures, which I thought I'd shed some light on before it all kicks off! As ever, the focus is on the premieres and the repeat performances of recent premieres, and this season really has this as its theme. Dutch whizz Joey Roukens has his concerto premiere in Rotterdam in May 2011 and in an interesting conceit it will be programmed with Milhaud's Concerto for Marimba and Vibraphone(my first time playing that piece) so that the evening will effectively include the world's newest mallet concerto alongside its oldest. The duo with Hakan Hardenberger gets a makeover, with three world premieres to spruce up its programme too; new works by Lukas Ligeti, Tobias Brostrom and Christian Muthspiel will get rehearsed in a residency in Aldeburgh before concerts in Germany and the Far East. Simon Holt, Jennifer Higdon, Kurt Schwertsik, Einojuhani Rautavaara, and Alexander Goehr all see repeat renditions of their works written for me in recent seasons, and the Rautavaara will also be committed to a CD recording with The Helsinki Philharmonic for Ondine. No season is really a season without a go at HK Gruber's majestic and boisterous "Rough Music" either, so I look forward to the Canadian Premiere of that work in Edmonton, alongside a percussion-focus presented there by the Edmonton Symphony. Chamber music collaborations see happy development too, with my first tour with The Miro Quartet in Austin and Washington DC, another tour of Harrison Birtwistle's "The Axe manual" (paired with Maxwell Davies' "Vesalii Icones") in Scotland, and the continuation of The Colin Currie Group's work building on the elation of last year's success at London's South Bank Centre. Further adding to repertoire for percussion and string quartet, I will premiere a new work by Michael Torke at the TROMP Festival in Eindhoven, "Mojave", which will also exist in a version for marimba and orchestra. I'm also looking forward to various Bartok Sonata performances, with Martha Argerich and Stephen Kovacevich in London's Wigmore Hall, and a special event in Graz conceived by long-standing colleague Pierre-Laurent Aimard in which the Sonata will be aired alongside capricious adaptations of works by Eotvos, Ligeti, Reich and Kurtag.
September sees my debut with The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra (as well as a holiday there with my father!) and I'm also very excited to be visiting The Grand Teton Music Festival for the first time too. My re-visit to The Cabrillo Festival will mean alot to me personally, having made my US debut there a full fourteen years ago. I can now count exactly 100 professional orchestras that I have collaborated with so far, and would like to thank Marin Alsop especially, for that debut all those years ago that led little by little to all these wonderful opportunities which I cherish so very much.
Enjoy!!
Colin.