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”.