Andriessen Tapdance & Clyne Secret Garden / Asko|Schönberg / Metal Wood Skin: the Colin Currie Percussion Festival / Southbank Centre
“The South Bank’s Metal Wood Skin festival showcases the formidable talents of charismatic percussionist Colin Currie… Andriessen’s Tapdance is a percussion concerto with a melancholy edge. The orchestral sound is poised somewhere between classical and big band, and the work is dominated by a sad, three-part blues, during which Currie plays “this lonely part for a percussionist”, as Andriessen calls it, tapping wood blocks to imitate the sound of a dancer’s feet, negotiating a big, nostalgic marimba solo, and finally beating out muffled tympani strokes as the work throbs to its close. Stressing the lyrical side of Currie’s musicianship, sometimes at the expense of his more familiar athleticism, it’s a beautiful score, at once graceful and deeply touching."
Guardian, October 2014