Colin pictured with Mark-Anthony Turnage
Colin joined the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Martyn Brabbins to give the Scottish premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage Martland Memorial at Glasgow City Halls on 25 April. The concert was streamed live on Youtube:
They then travelled to Inverness’ Eden Court Theatre on 26 April, where Colin joined the orchestra for Kurt Schwertsik Now you hear me, now you don't.
Turnage composed Martland Memorial for Colin as a musical epitaph to their late mutual friend Steve Martland. Colin gave the world premiere of the work with the Britten-Pears Orchestra in 2017 and joined Osmo Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra for the US premiere in March.
Reviews from the concert:
"... soloist Colin Currie doing an impressive one-man-band number that juggled bird whistle, car horn and swanee whistle with traditional marimba and Latin jive, and in the spirited Courante and Hornpipe. But overall there is a dark luminescence that shrouds the score, evocatively textured in the opening Cortege, central Pavane and closing Lachrymae."
The Scotsman, April 2019
"a work that is very much in [Martland's] spirit if musically dissimilar, contriving to be both elegiac and great fun, often at the same time. Requiring the sort of busy performance at which Currie excels, it culminates in a one-man duo on both vibraphone and marimba, after running through the full gamut of big and small drums and gongs and a full basket of percussion 'toys', swanee whistle and bird calls included."
The Herald Scotland, April 2019