Colin performs a programme rife with personal connections at Kings Place this weekend. The Colin Currie Quartet celebrates his native Scotland in the venue’s year-long ‘Scotland Unwrapped’ series, which pays tribute to music and musicians from the region and draws to a close this month. Colin has had a long association with Kings Place, having performed many times at the venue.
The programme features three Scottish composers: David Horne, Aileen Sweeney, and Anna Meredith. David Horne’s Pulse for solo marimba, which opens the concert, uses the human heartbeat as rhythmic inspiration and alternates unpredictably between extremes of energy and tranquility. This is Colin’s first time performing the work. Aileen Sweeney’s Starburst, performed here in its London premiere, infuses edgy, dancy, contrapuntal music with the composer’s traditional Scottish folk background. As suggested by the title, the piece takes inspiration from both astrophysics and childhood visits to the sweet shop, and was commissioned by Chamber Music Scotland, where Colin is an Ambassador.
You can listen to the Colin Currie Quartet rehearsing the piece here:
The third and final Scottish composer, Anna Meredith, has a double connection with Colin, as they played in the same wind band at their Edinburgh high school, and have kept in touch ever since. Anna has found success and was even nominated for the Mercury Prize for her high-octane and thrilling electronic music, and her piece Bumps Per Minute: 18 Studies for Dodgems is a typically full-throttle reinvention of the traditional fairground ride. The Quartet will play the piece in an arrangement by George Barton, a member of the Colin Currie Group.
A second world premiere from Ben Nobuto was commissioned by Colin specially for this concert. Daily Affirmation builds upon the mantra-like repetition of small and simple ideas to develop the four percussionists into “affirmation machines, dispensing joy in little packaged doses like those mechanical Pez sweets”.
The programme is completed by Steve Reich’s Mallet Quartet, a piece which among other Reich works has become a signature of the quartet. Written for two vibraphones and two five-octave marimbas, Reich’s typical canonic harmony creates a hypnotic groove.
The concert will be recorded for future broadcast on Radio 3.