Concerto Repertoire
Highlights include concerti by Elliott Carter, James MacMillan, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Jennifer Higdon, Simon Holt, HK Gruber, Kurt Schwertsik and Christopher Rouse. Click here for audio, video, press materials and further information on these works.
*possible for chamber orchestra
| KALEVI AHO |
Sieidi
Audio clip, reviews and further details |
| LOUIS ANDRIESSEN |
New work (premiere 2014) |
| SALLY BEAMISH |
Dance Variations* |
| ELLIOTT CARTER |
Two Controversies and a Conversation
Audio clip, reviews and further details |
| UNSUK CHIN |
Double Concerto (piano & percussion with mixed ensemble)*
|
| JOHN CORIGLIANO |
Conjurer* |
| MICHAEL DAUGHERTY |
U.F.O |
| JOE DUDDELL |
Snowblind (with string ensemble)*
Ruby |
| TAN DUN |
Concerto for Water Percussion |
| HK GRUBER |
Rough Music
Audio clip, reviews and further details |
| JONATHAN HARVEY |
Percussion Concerto |
| JENNIFER HIGDON |
Percussion Concerto
Audio clip, reviews and further details |
| SIMON HOLT |
a table of noises
Audio clip, reviews and further details |
| ANDRE JOLIVET |
Concerto for Percussion |
| ZHOU LONG |
Da Qu |
| STEVEN MACKEY |
Time Release* |
| JAMES MACMILLAN |
Veni, Veni Emmanuel*
Audio clip, reviews and further details |
| DAVE MARIC |
Lifetimes (with string ensemble)*
Towards Future's Embrace* |
| ASKELL MASSON |
Crossings (concerto for two percussionists)
Percussion Concerto |
| THEA MUSGRAVE |
Wood, Metal & Skin |
| NICO MUHLY |
Double Standard (concerto for two percussionists) |
| EINOJUHANI RAUTAVAARA |
Incantations
Audio clip, reviews and further details |
| JOEY ROUKENS |
Rotterdam Concerto
|
| CHRISTOPHER ROUSE |
Der gerettete Alberich
Audio clip, reviews and further details |
| KURT SCHWERTSIK |
Now you hear me, now you don't (with string ensemble)
Audio clip, reviews and further details |
| BRIGHT SHENG |
Colors of Crimson (concerto for marimba) |
| MICHAEL TORKE |
Rapture |
| GEORGE TSONTAKIS |
Mirologhia |
| ERKKI-SVEN TÜÜR |
Magma*
|
| JULIA WOLFE |
riSE and fLY |
| IANNIS XENAKIS |
Aïs (baritone, percussion and orchestra) |
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Conductor relationships
David Robertson, Marin Alsop, John Storgårds, Hannu Lintu, Dougie Boyd, Donald Runnicles, Osmo Vänskä, Yannick Nezet-Seguin, James Gaffigan, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Thierry Fischer, Gustavo Dudamel, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Oliver Knussen, Leonard Slatkin, Alexander Shelley, HK Gruber, Christoph Eschenbach, Steven Sloane, Joseph Swensen, Petri Sakari, Martyn Brabbins, Giancarlo Guerrero, James MacMillan, Kwame Ryan, Carlos Kalmar, Baldur Brönnimann, Andre de Ridder, Bramwell Tovey, Thomas Søndergård, Robert Spano, Tan Dun, Andrey Boreyko, Francois Xavier-Roth.
Solo Recital
An adventurous percussion recital featuring an international line-up of composers performed on marimba, vibraphone and drums. Highlights of his solo recital performances include at the Lucerne Festival, Wigmore Hall, Concertgebouw, Wiener Konzerthaus etc.
Elliott Carter Figment V
Per Norgaard Fire over Water
Toshio Hosokawa Reminiscence
Bruno Mantovani Moi, jeu ...
Interval
Dave Maric Sense and Innocence
Joseph Pereira Word of mouth
Rolf Wallin new solo marimba piece - world premiere
This programme will be premiered in April 2014 and is available throughout the 2014/15 season.
“Colin Currie is a musician first and a percussionist second…The instruments were played with a wonderful range of touch….A marvellous concert which got the South Bank Centre’s Rhythm Sticks festival off to a flying start”
The Telegraph, July 2002
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Family concerts, Education and outreach events
Currie is actively involved in education work, as Visiting Professor of Percussion at London’s Royal Academy of Music and at the Royal Conservatoire in the Hague. He regularly leads master classes, workshops and family concerts as stand alone events or connected to engagements, and is happy to take part in talks or other events.
Family concert programme
His solo family concerts are designed to introduce percussion to a young audience in a fun and engaging way, with on-stage participation and audience involvement throughout. The mixed programme has music from around the world including works influenced by Africa, Brazil, Japan and Indonesia:
Matthias Schmitt Ghanaia
Steve Reich Nagoya Marimbas
Per Norgaard 'Fire over Water' from I Ching
Steve Reich Clapping Music
Dave Maric Trilogy (Tamboo)
“The festival billed the event as a family concert in the mid-afternoon, and attracted a huge audience that included family groups and youngsters of every age. Was this audience intimidated or put off by the uncompromising music they faced? No way. Currie, completely unfazed by what must have been his youngest- ever audience turned the situation to his advantage, inviting groups of kids onto the floor to lay into his battery of drums by way of an introduction to the music of Per Norgard.”
Glasgow Herald reviews family concert at St Magnus Festival, June 2002
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Steve Reich Drumming
The Colin Currie Group was formed to perform Steve Reich’s iconic Drumming, a work which has built a huge following with audiences around the world. Colin Currie leads this dynamic group of virtuoso young percussionists combined with Synergy Vocals. The group first performed at the BBC Proms and have recently given sell-out performances in London, Birmingham and Perth, and will tour more widely in 2011 and beyond.
Click here to watch a short film of The Colin Currie Group performing Steve Reich's Drumming.
“Held together by eye contact, ear contact, intimate understanding of the score and collective breathing, the performance was both aurally and visually exciting – a work of art and also one of craft at its most disciplined and alert.”
The Independent, February 2010
“This was a mesmerizing performance from the Colin Currie Group, which was highly appreciated by the Queen Elizabeth Hall’s capacity audience”
Seen & Heard International, February 2010
“On Saturday night a new generation of musicians resurrected Drumming and brought it to Perth for a wholly different -and staggering -musical experience... Colin Currie put together an elite team of top UK percussionists and led them in a stunning, dramatic version of Drumming... young, fit, lean, fantastically musical and mind-bogglingly virtuosic. In their hands, Drumming was a continuum in four parts. This had direction, powering through the multi-bongo first section, beguiling the senses with the marimba marathon of the second, piercing the brain with the golden rainburst of glockenspiels in the third and culminating in an apocalyptic fourth section with everybody piling in.”
Glasgow Herald, April 2008
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Duo recital with Hakan Hardenberger
Colin Currie and Håkan Hardenberger’s outstanding duo collaboration connects two artists with a passion for dynamic new music and for performance at the highest level. Their charismatic stage presence displays a visible enjoyment of the music, matched by virtuosity and drama in equal measure. The relationship has already given birth to several specially commissioned new works.
Performances include at the Verbier Festival, London’s LSO St Lukes, San Francisco, Bridgewater Hall Manchester, Hamburg Musikhalle, Hannover, Bruges and Birmingham.
Click here to watch Currie in recital with Hakan Hardenberger.
Programme:
Joe Duddell Catch
Christian Muthspiel new duo work
Lukas Ligeti Tangle
*****
Tobias Broström new duo work
Louis Andriessen Woodpecker (solo percussion)
André Jolivet Heptade
Encore: Charlie Parker Donna Lee (arr. Rolf Martinsson)
“A breathtaking performance… Both players exhibited stunning virtuosity, though always at the service of musical effect, never for its own sake… These players had absolute command over their instruments. There was no gap between what they wanted to express and what they were technically capable of expressing.”
San Francisco Classical Voice, January 2008
“Hardenberger's style, generating tremendous emotions out of stillness, is the perfect dramatic foil for Currie's overt dynamism. The percussion layout resembled an altar, turning Currie into the celebrant of some arcane ritual; he goaded Hardenberger into a series of stylised responses, by turns ululating and ecstatic. Enthralling stuff, every second of it.”
The Guardian, February 2007
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String Quartet and Percussion
Pavel Haas Quartet and Colin Currie:
Colin Currie regularly performs with the Pavel Haas Quartet in a programme including Pavel Haas String Quartet No.2, a new work by Alexander Goehr and a commission for 11/12; performances at the City of London Festival, Beethovenfest Bonn, Prague Festival and BBC Proms.
Miró Quartet and Colin Currie:
Click here to listen to Colin Currie and the Miró Quartet perform Run Chime for String Quartet and Percussion by Dave Maric and Since Brass, nor stone… Fantasy for String Quartet and Percussion by Alexander Goehr.
Duo recital with Nicholas Hodges
Programme Includes Birtwistle The Axe Manual, Stockhausen Kontakte and Joe Duddell Parallel Lines – performances have included at Settembre Musica festival in Turin and Milan, and at the BBC Proms and the Wigmore Hall.
BBC Proms / Stockhausen Kontakte
“More striking was the 1960 work Kontakte, in which two virtuosos - the pianist Nicolas Hodges and the percussionist Colin Currie - provided a heroic live counterpoint to a cataclysmic recording. The spectacle of both players striding purposefully across the platform to thwack two huge gongs in perfect synchronicity with the electronic blitz has to be one of this Proms season's great moments.”
The Times, August 2008
“Another pioneering work, Kontakte, from 1961, in which electronic sounds are set against piano and percussion, was superbly delivered by Nicolas Hodges and Colin Currie…”
The Guardian, August 2008
“… it was the intricacy of Kontakte that pianist Nicolas Hodges, percussionist Colin Currie and sound projectionist Bryan Wolf revealed in their finely realised account.”
Independent on Sunday, August 2008
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The Colin Currie Group / Glasgow Royal Concert Hall
“Reich’s early minimalist masterpiece Drumming… formed a breathtaking conclusion to the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall’s fine weekend celebrating the pioneering composer’s music.
In an interview before the performance, Reich joked that he’d been furious when he first heard the Colin Currie Group play the piece – they’d mastered in no time what it had taken his own ensemble decades to perfect. And the young British 12-piece more than lived up to the composer’s introduction: the players’ muscular, driven performance seemed to surge forward, emphasising the volatile, joyous energy of the piece while making light of its fearsome technical demands.
They were ferociously physical yet superbly controlled in the African-sounding opening section, four percussionists attacking eight bongos, sliding in and out of sync with miraculous ease. The ear-bending third section (cue earplugs for the players) blended stratospheric tintinnabulations from glockenspiels with piccolo and whistling to magical effect, and even as the sounds grew more fairy-like, the energy never flagged.
The ensemble didn’t hang about, moving swiftly from section to section in an already fast-paced performance. But by the glorious conclusion, which joyously blended all we’d heard before, the group had achieved an almost spiritual beauty. An exceptional performance.”
The Scotsman, March 2013
“Given the complexity of the score we were about to hear, it is worth noting quite how lucidly – and frankly – Reich talks about his music, whether responding to Brown or members of the audience in the open session. He also more or less blamed Scottish percussionist Colin Currie ("One of the greatest musicians in the world today") for the demise of the composer's own group, reasoning that Reich's own musicians had been shown how to play Drumming when Currie formed his band to perform it in London in 2006. Which makes it perfectly reasonable to say that I do not expect to hear this remarkable hour-long piece played better. Reich may now be an avowedly non-orchestral composer, but when all nine percussionists are playing the three marimbas on stage, and the whole is topped off by the two female singers of Synergy Vocals, if the sound is not exactly lush, it is hard to imagine music that is any richer. The precision of the palette of Drumming – bongoes, marimbas, glockenspiels, voices and piccolo – is as crucial as the ground-breaking rhythmic technique and spare harmonic content. The production values of its presentation on the concert hall stage, with effective lighting and vision-mixing from an array of cameras on two screens above the players, were also exemplary.”
The Herald Scotland, March 2013
New concerti by Nico Muhly and Joey Roukens with Britten Sinfonia in Eindhoven
“Currie showcased his phenomental talent in Joey Roukens’ Rotterdam Concerto (2011) …”
NRC Handelsblad, November 2012
World premiere of Julia Wolfe riSE and fLY with the BBC Concert Orchestra and Keith Lockhart
“It's literally the remarkable Currie for half the work: the solo part is first played entirely on his body, with amplified claps, chest slaps and stamps, before a marginally more conventional second half uses a variety of found objects, plastic and metal cans, oven racks and more. Wolfe calls it "urban folk music for the orchestra", but like so much of her music it's also a wonderfully imaginative, boundary-crossing fusion of sources and styles.”
Guardian, October 2012
Gramophone award-winning recording of Einojuhani Rautavaara Incantations (Ondine)
“The vibrant Percussion Concerto, Incantations (2008), delivered with coruscating virtuosity by Colin Currie, is a strongly drawn triptych, rhythmically exciting and superbly orchestrated.”
Gramophone, October 2012
“The Percussion Concerto Incantations is more dramatic in tone from bar I, its fast-slow-fast design an orthodox but compelling vehicle for Currie’s blistering virtuosity (the soloist provides his own cadenza, too, in the Animato finale) … Colin Currie, for whom the concerto was written and who premiered it in London in 2009, reprises that scintillating performance in a barnstorming account caught splendidly in Ondine’s superlative sound.”
Gramophone, April 2012
MacMillan Veni, Veni Emmanuel with Oslo Philharmonic / Oslo Philharmonic Season Opening / cond. Jukka-Pekka Saraste
“Det er riktig som de sier om slagverkeren Colin Currie. I skotske James MacMillans elegant sprudlende slagverkskonsert «Veni, veni Emmanuel» spilte han overbevisende og svært organisk, og formerlig sprutet av virtuos energi.”
“It’s true what they say about percussionist Colin Currie: In the elegant, sparkling concert of ‘Veni, Veni Emmanuel’ by the Scottish composer James Macmillan, he played naturally and with convincing waves of virtuosic energy.”
Ballade.no, August 2012
“Solist Colin Currie hadde til rådighet omtrent alt som finnes av slagverksinstrumenter. Hans ekstreme ferdigheter på stemte og ustemte trommer og klokker var en fryd å følge, ikke minst hans tette forhold til orkesteret som er en ekstra krevende øvelse på perkusjon.”
“Soloist Colin Currie had almost all the instruments in the percussion family at his disposal. His extreme dexterity on both tuned and non-tuned instruments, drums and bells, made for thrilling following, not least in the symbiotic way he interacted with the orchestra; a particularly demanding task for a percussionist.”
Vårt Land, August 2012
MacMillan Veni, Veni Emmanuel with Oslo Philharmonic / Grafenegg Festival / cond. Jukka-Pekka Saraste
“Im Zentrum des Abends im Wolkenturm steht das Schlagwerkkonzert “Veni, veni, Emmanuel” von MacMillan, ein ungemein wirkungsvolles Werk, das voller kunterbunter Elemente steckt. Von allem ein wenig, ganz unterschiedliche Stimmungen und Versatzstücke... Hinreißend der Solist Colin Currie!”
“The central point of the concert at the Wolkenturm was MacMillan’s percussion concerto ‘Veni, veni, Emmanuel’, which is an extraordinarily effective piece, a real motley assortment of elements. There is a little of everything, a wide variety of moods and settings…The soloist, Colin Currie, was captivating.”
Kronen Zeitung, August 2012
Carter with New York Philharmonic/Robertson, June 2012
“Carter’s Two Controversies and a Conversation, in effect a pocket-size double concerto, took full advantage of its confident soloists, the pianist Eric Huebner and the percussionist Colin Currie. Two initial movements engaged the soloists in volleys of brittle one-upmanship, with no small show of athleticism from the constantly sprinting Mr. Currie. The last and longest eased them into more involved exchanges. The applause for Mr. Carter, wheelchair bound but characteristically animated, resounded thunderously.”
New York Times, June 2012
“Carter’s Two Controversies and a Conversation, co-commissioned by Aldeburgh and Radio France, emerges as a genial, economic rumination on percussive structures and strictures. Colin Currie and Eric Huebner, the soloists, trade snappy, tricky rhythmic impulses on a piano plus numerous tapping/stroking/banging devices. Supporting instruments add unpredictable commentary and echoes. As always, Carter ignores aesthetic concessions and stylistic compromises.”
Financial Times, June 2012
World Premiere of Aho Sieidi with the London Philharmonic / cond. Osmo Vänskä
“Big and bold, Aho’s Sieidi: Concerto for Solo Percussion and Orchestra, a joint commission by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and others, arrived with some thunderous drumming at the Southbank Centre on Wednesday...[The] music is a ride on the big dipper of extreme contrasts – macho punch-ups with belligerent rhythms (a soundtrack for the next Bond film?), long melodies that float over a barren landscape and simple passages for solo drums like shamanistic ritual...There is an energy about his concerto that holds the attention. It is a lively, virtuoso piece and Currie made the most of it.This was an evening when the percussionist’s art was left free to shine, and Currie’s with it.”
Financial Times, April 2012
“Currie and the London Philharmonic performed the work beautifully”
Guardian, April 2012
“Aho is a concerto composer par excellence: here he has played very much to the virtuoso talents of Colin Currie.”
Times, April 2012
“Aho conjured up a different orchestral atmosphere for each station on Currie’s journey; whining sax over vibraphone recalled Debussy, sinuous rhythms suggested the swaying of an exotic dancer, one section with castanets might have worked on Broadway Meanwhile, Currie progressed with calm authority through an anthology of modern percussion gestures, using hands, sticks, mallets, brushes and bows to coax life into his instruments … Sieidi was vivid, colourful, entertaining.”
Evening Standard, April 2012
“Colin Currie tackled the work with a winningly energetic panache”
Classical Source, April 2012
“Currie’s furious drumming was exciting: it always is.”
The Arts Desk, April 2012
Higdon Percussion Concerto with the Baltimore Symphony / cond. Marin Alsop
“As the concerto proceeds, Higdon, a Pulitzer Prize winner, builds a vibrant atmosphere, with the strings creating shaded textures, the horns contributing bright lines and the woodwinds intermittently emerging above the fray. The music roiled and flared, and Currie's performance grew increasingly energetic; a serene song for xylophone and celesta cooled the temperature a bit, but the work surged again with a riotous cadenza and an outsized finale. Alsop, who knows the score well -- she conducted it at Cabrillo a few seasons back, and has recorded it with the London Philharmonic -- returned to it Friday with impressive focus and brio. Currie distinguished himself throughout, and Higdon joined the conductor and her soloist onstage to an enthusiastic ovation.”
San Jose Mercury News, March 2012
“Currie performed the piece with unwavering athletic flare. After a sensitive opening on marimba, the piece traverses a terrain of devilish and relentless passagework which Currie delivered with precise execution. He strode confidently between an array of percussion instruments, swiftly and with purpose. His longest walk was reserved for the set of drums where he performed a dazzling cadenza with furrowed intensity and frenzied abandon, on the edge yet never out of control. There were superb conversational exchanges between the soloist and the ever-attentive percussion section, and despite the vast distance between them, they locked in with exceptional ability.
Currie was spellbinding not only through his showmanship, but also through his infectious enjoyment of the music. Often exchanging knowing smiles with Alsop, he also took a moment part-way through one section to acknowledge an excitable audience member in the front row with an appreciative smile and nod of the head. He engaged everyone in the entire hall, and even the occasional musician on stage sat mesmerised by an arsenal of techniques.”
Bach Track, March 2012
UK premiere of Sally Beamish Dance Variations with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra
“The real dance takes place in the soloist’s hands – notably in the racier sections (avarice, pride), where Beamish stretches Currie’s musical skills without descending into show-off theatrics. Dance Variations is full of ear-teasing ideas and represents a substantial addition to the repertoire.”
Guardian, March 2012
HK Gruber Rough Music with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra / cond. HK Gruber
“Hats off to Currie. It’s hard to imagine that there are many people who could play this piece. “Rough Music” came in three parts. Parts one and three had some very American and especially Gershwin-esque passages. Homage to cinema music could be gleaned. Part two saw Currie on the conventional pop drum set, and the racket was brought to euphony. Currie’s performance was pretty astounding and the thirty odd minute “Rough Music” ended with him beating the stuffing out of a giant bass drum.”
ERR News, Estonian Public Broadcasting, October 2011
World Premiere of Elliott Carter Conversations with Pierre-Laurent Aimard and BCMG / Aldeburgh Festival / cond. Oliver Knussen
“It's a beautifully engineered series of encounters between the piano (played by Pierre-Laurent Aimard) and the array of percussion (Colin Currie), who match and swap registers and sound worlds. The ensemble supplies terse punctuation until, in a brief, dazzling climax, it too gets swept into the soloists' figuration, before the piece ends with a last metallic aside.”
Guardian, June 2011
“This afternoon I heard a new double concerto for piano and percussion whose mixture of mathematical complexity and bouncy joie de vivre took the breath away... Currie describes the work as “one of the most significant additions to our chamber repertoire since the Bartok Sonata of 1938″. He’s right: this is a magical score. The work lasts only seven minutes, during which the piano and marimba send out showers of perfectly synchronised arpeggios, interspersed with metrical games that draw in the brass, strings, drums, gong and vibraphone. Knussen very sensibly conducted it twice, and the second time around every bar yielded little felicities of scoring that I’d missed the first time.”
Daily Telegraph Blogs, June 2011
“Scored for solo piano and percussion with Mozart-size orchestra, it makes a pungent statement. Conversations is a witty dialogue between solo instruments with much in common – the piano, after all, has percussive qualities – but represent different viewpoints about sound. In Carter’s scenario, the piano sets the pace and has the best music, but the percussion commands a wider palette and seems more exuberant, often putting the piano in the shade. When marimba or vibraphone calls the tune, the conversation sounds harmonious. When gongs or drums take their turn, the soloists seem at odds. As in any civilised argument, they refrain from interrupting each other. The piece reaches a humorous, single-note conclusion – and Carter pulls off another of his succinct musical metaphors for social interchange. Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Colin Currie were spirited soloists with the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group under Oliver Knussen.”
Financial Times, June 2011
“The music’s splintered sound felt like pure thought in motion. As did the brand-new double concerto Conversations from the 102-year-old Elliott Carter, in which percussionist Colin Currie and pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard tossed musical shapes at each other like netball players. No doubt about it; it was the old masters who seemed truly young.
Daily Telegraph, June 2011
“The piece is more about response and reaction — everywhere quick, brittle, witty — than about solo virtuosity. And its writing challenged the [orchestra] as much as the soloists in its mercurial impulses and ricocheting resonances.”
Times, June 2011
“Music of an amazingly energetic bent... Conversations for piano and percussion reveals a composer who, at least in musical thought, hasn't slowed down one bit. From the off, fantastically industrious ideas are summoned up (a tone row boogie-woogie from Pierre-Laurent Aimard's piano, syncopated responses from Colin Currie's marimba) and hurtle uncontainably around the stage like three-year-olds around a kitchen table.”
The Arts Desk, June 2011
Duo Recital with Hakan Hardenberger for Pro Musica Hannover
“Publikumfavorit wurde allerdings ein Schlagzeugsolo: „Woodpecker“ von Louis Andriessen ist in der Tat ein wunderbares Stück, treibend und humorvoll. Currie bewältigte nicht nur souverän die beträchtlichen technischen Schwierigkeiten der Komposition, sondern wusste auch ohne Schwächemomente den notwendigen Puls zu halten." “The audience favourite, however was the percussion solo: “Woodpecker” by Louis Andriessen, is indeed a wonderful piece, with drive and humour. Not only did Currie supremely conquer the considerable technical difficulties of the composition, but he knew how to hold the pulse without any moment of weakness.”
Cellesche Zeitung, April 2011
“Colin Currie bewegt sich virtuos auf seinen zahlreichen Instrumenten. Schon dass er sich in seinem Instrumentarium nicht verirrt, nötigt Respekt ab. Das perfekte Zusammenspiel, das gegenseitige Zuhören und Aufeinander-Eingehen, faszinierte.”
“Colin Currie was a master of virtuosity with his numerous instruments. The fact he never got lost between all his instruments deserves our respect. The perfect interaction, the mutual listening and the understanding was fascinating. The enthusiastic public wanted more.”
Neue Presse, April 2011
“Der Trompeter Håkan Hardenberger und der Schlagzeuger Colin Currie begeistern beim Pro-Musica-Konzert. Nein, das war ganz und gar nicht alltäglich. So spannend und entspannend zugleich kann neuere Musik sein!”
“The trumpet player Håkan Hardenberger and the percussionist Colin Currie delighted the audience at the Pro Musica concert. No, this was not at all an everyday event. Who would have thought that contemporary music could be so thrilling yet relaxing at the same time!”
Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung, April 2011
Leading the Colin Currie Group in a performance of Steve Reich Drumming at Queen Elizabeth Hall, London
“Watching the Colin Currie Group performing Reich's early-Seventies landmark work Drumming, one is struck by the intense levels of concentration required to bring the 70-minute piece successfully through its various stages. Currie's 12-piece ensemble is exceptionally focused, and the result holds the audience rapt throughout its duration.... The transitions between sections are seamlessly effected throughout, with particular attention paid to the bongos, which might easily overpower the more delicate tones. Ultimately, all the different elements are reintroduced in the collective fourth section, where the apparent contradictions between the skin, wood and metal timbres are magically dissolved in a joyous, propulsive finale that suddenly comes to a shockingly abrupt halt in perfect unison.”
Independent, five stars, April 2011
Rautavaara Incantations / Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra
“...the soloist's spellbinding entrance -- a rush of marimba figuration, its intensity echoed by similar patterns on tuned drums and cymbals. Currie shifted deftly behind the array, sometimes producing four mallets where two had been a moment before, hammering out dissonant staccato chords, asserting shamanic authority...yes, the spirits do come when Rautavaara, through an adroit interpreter like Currie, calls for them.”
Indystar, March 2011
HK Gruber Rough Music / Alte Oper Frankfurt / Junge Deutsche Philharmonie and Andrés Orozco-Estrada
„Der Wiener HK Gruber spielt in den «Rauen Tönen» das nächtlich-lärmige Gespenstertreiben durch, mit dem man auf dem Lande schon im Mittelalter missliebige Mitbewohner erschreckte. Das Arsenal dieses Stückes für Percussion ist gewaltig, hier in vier Gruppen aufgebaut. So etwas stellt riesige Anforderungen an den Schlagzeuger, der zudem mit dem Orchester einig gehen muss. Der Schotte Colin Currie löste diese vielfarbige, vielrhythmische Aufgabe glänzend. Selbst leichte Walzerseligkeit wurde schneidend konterkariert. In diesem Hexenkessel blieb dem Publikum schier der Atem weg.”
“The Viennese HK Gruber portrays the noisy, nocturnal, ghostly goings-on in “Rough Music”, a method used in the countryside in medieval times to scare unpopular residents. The instrumental set-up for this piece for percussion is enormous, arranged on stage in four groups. Something like this is incredibly demanding for the percussion soloist, who also has to synchronise perfectly with the orchestra. Scotsman Colin Currie solved this multicoloured, multi-rhythmic task brilliantly. Even simple waltz-phrases were edgily performed. This witch’s cauldron took the audience’s breath away.”
Frankfurter Neue Presse, January 2011
„Der schottische Perkussionist Colin Currie bewegte sich katzengewandt von einem Schlagzeugset zum andern, brachte Marimba, Vibrafon, Trommeln, Becken, Glocken und Pauken in raschem Wechsel zum rhythmischen Einsatz. Zwischen Kitsch und Krach, ätherischen und brutalen Klängen pendelt diese Musik, die sich als effektvolles Spektakel erweist, das im letzten Satz gar mit Walzerzitaten aufwartet, bevor es mit einem donnernden Wirbel auf der großen Trommel endet. Tadellos funktionierte dank des umsichtigen Dirigenten die Koordination von Solist und Orchester.“
“Colin Currie moved like a cat from one set of drums to another as he changed rapidly between marimba, vibraphone, cymbals, bells and timpani. This music, which proved an effective spectacle, fluctuated between kitsch and noise, ethereal and brutal sounds. In the last movement the music even quoted a waltz, before it ended with a thundering roll on the bass drum. The coordination of soloist and orchestra was impeccable, especially thanks to the prudent conductor.”
Echo Online, January 2011
Performing with Martha Argerich and Stephen Kovacevich at the Wigmore Hall
“...a performance of Bartok’s Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion that combined grandeur, decorative grace and bounding energy, all in a spirit of relaxed enjoyment.”
Daily Telegraph, October 2010
MacMillan Veni, Veni, Emmanuel and Jennifer Higdon Percussion Concerto on tour with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and Alexander Shelley
“The Edinburgh-born soloist makes a big impression with his astonishing musicality...centred around his love for marimba, [Higdon’s Percussion Concerto] had him front-of-stage with marimba, percussion and drum kit, and moving around the instruments. The piece included wafting marimba, bowed sounds, and full tilt drum kit solos, a la rock bands...[Currie’s] cadenza was vibrant and there was particular interest in the dialogue and interplay, like echoes and “duels” between the soloist and the orchestral percussion players.”
Capital Times, September 2010
“With an array of instruments ranged across the front of the stage Currie was a one-man orchestra racing around his various noise-producing instruments.”
National Business Review, September 2010
“Colin Currie is as good as his reputation and the whole thing was spectacular.”
The Dominion Post, September 2010
“A percussionist is not the usual soloist with the NZSO, but the slimly build and intensely fit Colin Currie impressed in this role, matching his reputation as a phenomenally gifted player who is turbo-charged...He was certainly active across the front of the stage in his performance of James MacMillan’s Veni, Veni, Emmanuel, swiftly changing between groups of sonorous gongs and tuned percussion on one side, to timpani, cymbals and drums on the other, with plenty more between, and finally to the ethereal finish on the tubular bells high at the back of the stage. His playing of a bewildering array of instruments provided a fascinating visual as well as auditory experience for a rapt audience.”
Hawkes Bay Today, September 2010
“Colin Currie, that cool master of the mallets, headlined the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra’s two Soundscapes concerts. The Scottish percussionist was just as spry dashing from instrument to instrument as he was on his last visit, but this time he brought more substantial repertoire. James MacMillan’s Veni, Veni, Emmanuel is an established modern-day classic. Its appeal lies in its sincerely expressed spiritual theme and, for those who know their plainsong, MacMillan’s clever twisting of an old chant. Restless, vibrant textures showcased Currie’s virtuosity while a more poetic aspect was revealed in a shimmering marimba cadenza against sotto voce strings.”
Capital Times, September 2010
“The soloist in both concerts was balletic Scottish percussionist Colin Currie, who was as exciting to watch as he was to listen to.”
The Listener, September 2010
Jennifer Higdon Percussion Concerto with Marin Alsop at the 2010 Cabrillo Festival
“More impressive was Higdon’s 2005 Percussion Concerto, written for the phenomenal Colin Currie and displaying his talent for drawing a wide spectrum of sounds from intractable instruments: in his hands, the marimba coos and a drum set thunders."
Financial Times USA, August 2010
“[Higdon’s] Percussion Concerto’s soloist was the astonishing Colin Currie, who worked three different batteries of at least a dozen instruments and as many sticks and mallets.”
Santa Cruz weekly, August 2010
“Percussionist Colin Currie blazed brilliantly through Higdon’s high-energy 2005 Percussion Concerto”
Santa Cruz Sentinel, August 2010
“Currie’s performance, ranging from nuanced to aggressive (and roaming all over the stage), was terrific”
San Francisco Classical Voice, August 2010
BBC Proms 2010: Simon Holt a table of noises / BBC National Orchestra of Wales / cond. Thierry Fischer
“The work, arranged in six main sections interspersed with cadenza-like passages, is complex in structure and must be the very devil for even a soloist of Currie's ability. In fact, he performed it with an authority that left mere virtuosity behind and turned everything into musical expression.”
Guardian, July 2010
“What mattered was the series of enchanted musical worlds which Currie created, with taut, terse, high-pitched pings and pocks from wood, skin, and metal. The slimmed-down orchestra consisted of woodwind, brass, harp, strings, and xylophones, with which Currie’s own xylophone created celestial harmonies; at some moments we might have been in a Japanese Noh theatre.”
Independent, July 2010
“It needs a performance of blazing precision and nervous tension – which is exactly what it got. Soloist Colin Currie was a miracle of cool-headed brilliance, flitting between xylophone and his taxidermist’s table of instruments with total aplomb.”
Daily Telegraph, July 2010
“As the piece opened, Currie measured out a rhythmic figure that, with the help of two strident piccolos, became the seed of a firm melodic idea. Sometimes Currie established possibilities that the ensemble developed around him; sometimes he followed, but the music’s inexorable forward motion and delight in unexpected sonorities were always clear. At no point was he called upon to batter the orchestra into submission; instead, he took his place before a different percussive option for each movement, now building up broken funk rhythms, now creating subtle undercurrents. Between each of the movements came a series of what Holt calls “ghosts”, passages during which Currie remained silent. Quietly intense, they emphasised how far from the conventional percussion concerto Holt had come.”
Evening Standard, July 2010
World premiere of Einojuhani Rautavaara's Percussion Concerto Incantations / London Philharmonic Orchestra / cond. Yannick Nézet-Séguin
“Einojuhani Rautavaara's Incantations, a concerto for percussion and orchestra, manages to be both intensely innovative and highly conventional. Rautavaara's concerto is dominated by a resplendent opening orchestral fanfare, which returns at the work's close. The solo part is not, as one had feared, a massive crash-bang-wallop drum extravaganza, but a delicate and luminous invention of great expressiveness, with the marimba and vibraphone carrying much of the solo writing. Colin Currie's athletic playing was as dazzling and persuasive as the work itself.”
Guardian, October 2009
“Incantations was written for, and in consultation with, Colin Currie, who gave a dedicated performance, complete with virtuoso cadenza of his own making.”
Times, October 2009
Premiere of Jennifer Higdon Percussion Concerto with the Philadelphia Orchestra / cond. Christoph Eschenbach / Carnegie Hall
“The performance elicited a cheering ovation for the extraordinary percussion soloist, Colin Currie, and for the composer. Once the first section really takes off, the music is nonstop in its energy. There are frenzied outbursts and flourishes for the soloist on the marimba, vibraphone, blocks and drum sets. The concerto certainly provided a vehicle for the brilliant Mr. Currie, a limber, young virtuoso born in Edinburgh…. The jazzy and vehement cadenza, played on the drum set, gave Mr. Currie his Max Roach moment."
New York Times, December 2006
UK premiere of Higdon Percussion Concerto with the London Philharmonic / cond. Marin Alsop
“Jennifer Higdon’s Percussion Concerto is a brilliantly crafted, brilliantly theatrical, display piece for its splendid dedicatee, the British percussion soloist Colin Currie. Progressing from throbbing marimba through clattering woodblocks to a drum kit from hell, Currie always found beauty in precision. Elegance too.”
Times, December 2007
World premiere of Simon Holt a table of noises / City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / cond. Martyn Brabbins
“Currie’s virtuosic performance confirmed that the percussion repertory has been enriched. Brittle, unsettling and full of bite."
Sunday Telegraph, May 2008
Duo Recital with Hakan Hardenberger at LSO St Luke’s
“Currie attacked a sequence of fiendish solos, including Per Norgaard's Fire Over Water and Louis Andriessen's Woodpecker - the former joyously cacophonous, the latter more subdued, albeit fiendish in its rhythmic complexity. A solo percussionist is, of necessity, a musical athlete, and the brilliance of Currie's playing is inseparable from the thrill of watching him perform acts of tremendous dexterity that seemingly draw on endless reserves of stamina. Enthralling stuff, every second of it.”
Guardian, February 2007
Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse & John Storgårds in Rouse Die Gerettete Alberich
“The American composer Christopher Rouse’s fantasy for percussion and orchestra, Der gerettete Alberich, provided the opportunity of discovering Colin Currie, a tremendous virtuoso. Installed in front of the orchestra amongst an impressive ensemble of percussion instruments, he roused the enthusiasm of the audience by his fantastic mastery of tone and rhythm.”
La Dépêche du Midi, May 2009
With the Los Angeles Philharmonic & Leonard Slatkin performing Rouse Die Gerettete Alberich
"The orchestra plays around with themes from the "Ring," while Alberich simply plays around. The character is delusional as ever. He thinks he's a pop star, so Currie, at one point, hopped on a set of traps. A wide array of instruments presents the wily little guy in an assortment of disguises. His visions of grandeur, while amusing, are not without their edge. Currie's magnificent performance of the delirious cadenza was both thrilling and a bit nerve-racking."
Los Angeles Times, August 2008
BBC Proms 2003
“Last night, a great cheer went up for the charismatic Colin Currie, who is such an inspirational catalyst when it comes to contemporary percussion music. This concerto by Duddell looked much more difficult to play than it was to listen to, but Currie’s athleticism and musicianship were fully equal to it.”
Daily Telegraph, July 2003
Performing with the New World Symphony and Marin Alsop
“British percussionist Colin Currie was a bold force of nature. Currie's dazzling feats of rhythm, speed, and dexterity were riveting. In an episode that mixed marimba with woodwinds, he produced streams of mellifluous timbres.”
The Miami Herald, April 2006
MacMillan Veni, Veni Emmanuel
“MacMillan’s dramatic tour de force for percussion soloist and orchestra Veni, Veni, Emmanuel has become a best-seller in the concert hall, and there simply isn’t a better exponent than the charismatic Colin Currie.”
BBC Music Magazine, August 2007
“A showstopping performance from the percussion virtuoso Colin Currie. I’d never thought that drums could be so lyrical.”
Daily Telegraph, January 2005
“Colin Currie’s account of the solo part was a tour de force…”
Evening Standard, January 2005
“The score that fully gripped the imagination was the familiar, glamorous Veni, Veni, Emmanuel, with MacMillan conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Colin Currie the charismatic, athletic percussionist.”
The Guardian, January 2005