© James Glossop
This week, Colin travels to Katowice, Poland, to perform Sir James MacMillan’s Veni, Veni Emmanuel with the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Marin Alsop.
A work of great importance to Colin, he has performed this percussion concerto more than 150 times. He initially worked with Marin on the concerto during his US debut at the Cabrillo Festival in 1996. Subsequently, Colin has also released two critically-acclaimed recordings of the work, first on Naxos in 1999 conducted by Takuo Yuasa, and then on Challenge Classics in 2012, conducted by MacMillan himself.
'Skipping around the composer/conductor between his clusters of tuned and untuned instruments, Currie found every colour and nuance in the score, with the rest of the musicians onstage at full stretch for the duration of the work as well.'
The Herald on Colin’s performance of the work with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in 2019
Colin has maintained a close partnership with Sir James through the years, and has since commissioned the composer’s second percussion concerto, which was dedicated to Colin. He premiered the work in 2014 with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic:
‘If I had to characterise Colin’s approach it would be a combination of accuracy and sensitivity that generates real emotion.’
Read Sir James McMillan’s interview on his second percussion concerto.