COLIN CURRIE

Critical Acclaim “Percussionist Colin Currie jumped into the assignment with his usual, apparently effortless aplomb,

darting back and forth between marimba and vibraphone, as well as a battery of drums, cymbals and bells.

The sheer virtuosity of his playing was enough to hold the interest, but there was considerable

musical value in the way the percussion battery was deployed throughout this taut concerto. Much of

the writing is subtle, atmospheric, evocative, rather than assertive (of course, whenever you see a lineup

up multiple-size cymbals, you know they're going to get hammered in succession every now and then --

and that's part of this score, too). The dialogue between soloist and orchestra is often engaging, but the

former's contributions understandably dominate the argument. Lintu provided Currie with supple support

and drew lively work from the ensemble.”

Baltimore Sun

"Colin Currie is a musician first and a percussionist second...The instruments were played with a

wonderful range of touch....A marvellous concert…"

The Telegraph [UK]

"The performance elicited a cheering ovation for the extraordinary percussion soloist, Colin

Currie, and for the composer…"

The New York Times

“…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

"The slow movement had wave after wave of ecstatic, intense color, with sound shapes created

by bowing cymbals. Broad Coplandesque melodies commanded the ear, though everything

around them went in unexpected directions."

Philadelphia Inquirer

“Veni, Veni Emmanuel, with the vigorously wonderful Colin Currie ... where Currie and Alsop

were in perfect synch… Exciting music, excitingly performed."

The Times [London]

“…Currie led by example, arresting us with his effortless virtuosity and engaging personality.”

The Scotsman

“Scottish percussionist Colin Currie repeated his triumphant romp through the impossibly busy

solo part, while Alsop kept the orchestral side of the picture strongly focused.”

Baltimore Sun

(TRANSLATION) “With regard to the interpreters, the Utah Symphony Orchestra, well

conducted by Thierry Fischer, is compact and tight-knit team confirms in every section, able to

make the most of the three compositions performed, and exceptional is the contribution of

talented percussionist Colin Currie in Switch. In conclusion a very interesting album, which

bears witness to the vitality and substance of American contemporary music.”

Critica Classica

Utah Symphony's Impressive Carnegie Hall Comeback By Daniel Stephen Johnson, MusicalAmerica.comMay 3, 2016

NEW YORK­­Ranking symphony orchestras isultimately a useless little parlor game, but it can bedifficult to resist, especially when a concert asbreathtaking as the Utah Symphony's recent visit toCarnegie Hall prompts a mental rearrangement of thescoreboard of modern American orchestras. Both inFriday night's New York premiere of Switch, a newconcerto written for Colin Currie by Californiacomposer Andrew Norman, and in pieces of standardrepertoire, Thierry Fischer and his Salt Lake City bandgave a performance as transporting as anythingAmerica's more widely acknowledged cultural capitalshave to offer. 

Best known for his mischievous and ultimately movingsymphony Play, Andrew Norman has created inSwitch a concerto nearly as compelling, and every bitas antic. Like Play, the piece incorporates internal"signals" of a sort, gestures from the orchestralpercussionist and, in this case, from the percussionsoloist, that cause the texture of the piece to change

abruptly, as if it were being composed extemporaneously—the "switches” of the title. 

Like surfing channels with a TV remote, or depressing a mouse to control a music­mixing app,a tick or a snap from the percussion batteries adds, removes, or completely transforms layersof orchestral sound. The logic of the typical concerto's quasi­adversarial relationship betweensoloist and orchestra is extended to become its own little drama of control. The percussionist"forces" the orchestra to perform or to repress various affective states, in addition to havinghis own rhythmic or melodic material. 

In performance, it became clear that Norman was also thinking of the visual drama of thepiece. Mysteriously absent from the stage for most of the orchestral introduction, soloist ColinCurrie suddenly leapt onto stage­left from the auditorium just in time to make his entrance andthen, over the half­hour duration of the piece, played his way down the massive array ofpercussion stretching from one side of the stage to the other, before exiting stage right duringthe final measures. The overt theatricality of Currie's dramatic entrance and exit seemedunnecessary, given how effectively the more purely musical elements of the piece had createdtheir own kind of choreography for the soloist: his nimble, high­energy performance was itselfa pleasure to witness, and the excitement of navigating with him the gamut of cowbells andgongs was as rich as the resulting orchestral colors.

Under Fischer, music director since 2009, the Utah Symphony proved to be the idealensemble for the Switch premiere. (It was a co­commission with Carnegie Hall.)The self­awarejumble of modernist and romantic gestures in the piece demands something like multiplepersonalities from the orchestra, and Utah proved eminently adaptable. It offered precisionand warmth throughout the program, but seemed in every other respect to transform into adifferent orchestra as each composer required. 

For the opening number, Haydn's Symphony No. 96 Miracle, the slightly reduced forces stoodfor the duration (save for the cellists) and strings played with light, brushy bowstrokes andminimal vibrato, in a nod to historically informed performance practice. Haydn's wit can be

biting, but the gentleness with which this Miracle's surprising dissonances were delivered washighly effective. Acting associate principal oboe Titus Underwood performed his solos with anexceptional purity of tone, in the American style. 

In the selections from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet that followed the intermission, actingprincipal oboe James Hall offered a slightly more piquant sonority, but still kept well this side ofthe continental approach to double­reed timbre, just as the full complement of strings kept awarm and unified sound even through the bite and intensity demanded by the modernistmusic. Fischer's tempos were brisk and even, making the moments of subtle rubato all themore effective.

Both the Prokofiev and the closing piece, Bartok's Miraculous Mandarin, have their muscularmoments—huge fortissimos, crashing dissonances—and Utah delivered. Throughout theconcert, the sound was beautifully balanced, from never­shrill violins and woodwinds to bassfiddling you could feel in your bones. Fischer managed to hint at the brutality lurking in thesetwo scores without ever sacrificing control. 

Moreover, he approached these two masterpieces of prewar Eastern Europe differently, thestrings biting deeper and the trombones snarling more savagely in the grotesque Bartok thanin the airier—if only slightly—Prokofiev. The orchestra's facility for animating these works withthe same bold vigor, as well as the more subtly delightful Haydn, and the dizzying newNorman made for a genuinely spectacular night out at the symphony.

 

Pictured: Theirry Fischer

 

 

 

Copyright © 2016, Musical America

 

COLIN CURRIE New York Classical Review • April 30, 2016

Utah Symphony shows versatility in return to Carnegie Hall BY KURT GOTTSCHALK The Utah Symphony made its first appearance at Carnegie Hall in four decades Friday night, with music director Thierry Fischer leading a program that spanned three centuries. Mitt Romney was among the packed and enthusiastic hometown audience in attendance.

The concert opened with Haydn’s Symphony No. 96 in D major, the so-called “Miracle” Symphony, one of the wonderful symphonies the composer wrote late in his life while staying in London. The nickname isn’t a testimony of devotion but comes from a likely apocryphal tale about a giant chandelier falling during the 1791 premiere and injuring no one as the enthusiastic audience had crowded the stage.

The Utah strings dominated the textures throughout the evening. Thierry had all Utah Symphony players except the cellists stand, Classical style, for the duration of the piece. Perhaps it’s somehow true that – as with singers and bank tellers – musicians are better able to do their jobs when on their feet. The lines were clear and played with spirit in the opening movement and in the alternating dance and battle march of the Andante second movement. Perhaps that physical stamina contributed to the polite applause after every movement.

The orchestra, now seated, gave the New York premiere of the young American composer Andrew Norman’s Switch.

From the opening seconds, Norman’s fast-paced percussion concerto had the dramatic tension of a John Carpenter score, even before soloist Colin Currie sprinted onstage and leapt into place behind an expansive assemblage of toms, snares, cymbals, congas and a marimba.

The explosion of visual stimulus made it hard to listen until, after several minutes, a momentary break in the drumming allowed the ear to focus. A few minutes later, to the soft strains of solo piano, Currie moved briskly to the other side of the stage, where woodblocks, a bass drum, a vibraphone and nine gongs of various sizes were placed, later dashing between the two instrumental groups.

Like the physicality of Currie’s performance, the music worked in sudden turns, percussionist and orchestra playing quick passages in strictly synchronized rhythm, then switching into percussion concerto mode and then into denser juxtapositions. Those thicker, generally slower, passages, where Norman let the music sit a bit, were the most satisfying, like the opening of a door into a dark room rather than the car chase.

After the light and jaunty first half, a set of five selections from Prokofiev’s beloved ballet Romeo and Juliet hit like a wrecking ball. Conductor Fischer put special emphasis on the dark, tragic tones of the lower register, steering in broad

Colin Currie New York Classical Review • April 30, 2016 page 2 of 2 strokes in “Montagues and Capulets.” The “Masked Ball” was a little brighter and the “Dance” brighter still, but with “Romeo at Juliet’s Tomb” the blinding darkness returned, a bit airier but despondent nevertheless. The emotional import throughout seemed almost a transcription of Shakespeare’s play and the precision in their performance again made one wonder why rose the orchestra hadn’t played New York’s most famous hall for 40 years.

Closing the evening was more ballet music, with Bartok’s Suite From The Miraculous Mandarin, which very nearly exploded off the stage. The bold piece still finds its musical roots in folklore, yet this scenario is a grittier tale of urban lust and crime, The story, a woman held against her will and forced to lure men into the hands of her thieving captors, seems made for the movies even if Bartok’s setting dates from 1918, and Currie and company certainly didn’t shrink from the drama. They might not have given the subtlest of readings in their return to Carnegie Hall, but it made for an evening of excitement.

COLIN CURRIE The New York Times • October 30, 2014

A Classic and a Premiere in an Evening of Reich An Evening of Steve Reich at Zankel Hall BY ZACHARY WOOLFE In 1971, Steve Reich finished “Drumming” and then composed “Clapping Music,” which is like building the Taj Mahal and following it with a dollhouse.

“Clapping Music,” a work for two pairs of hands whose rhythms start in sync and move, intriguingly, out of it, is just three or four minutes long: a charming lark, a palate cleanser. “Drumming” — even shorn of its repeats, as it was in a stirring performance led by the percussionist Colin Currie during an evening of Reich at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday — lasts nearly an hour, a capacious catalog of textures and moods.

In the relatively intimate surroundings of Carnegie’s Zankel Hall, “Drumming” felt more immediate and immersive than it had last month at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. There is a passage that stood out in the second of its four sections, in which the players put down a quick-flowing marimba line, and then suddenly, atop it, the same rhythm, but higher in pitch, somehow more hopeful.

Digging back into Mr. Reich’s body of work to find the ultimate genesis of his new Quartet, which had its American premiere on Wednesday between “Clapping Music” (performed by Mr. Currie and Mr. Reich) and “Drumming,” you might come up with this moment. The new work is full of such moments of aching, bright-eyed hopefulness expressed in a mallet instrument, though in a far more overtly melodic, even ingratiating mode than the early-career Reich of “Drumming.”

Written for two vibraphones (Mr. Currie and Daniel Druckman) and two pianos (Simon Crawford-Phillips and Philip Moore), the 17-minute Quartet is Mr. Reich’s first piece for those two instruments alone, and the combination is ingenious and seductive, and deployed with subtle craftsmanship. The milky vibraphones tend to take center stage, but the pianos find ample opportunities to assert themselves. Sometimes the vibraphone lines are more liquid, and sometimes they feel percussive alongside a velvety gush in the pianos.

The work has an alert, jazzy, urban character — suavely melancholy in its nocturnal slower middle section, with angular yet genial rhythms that evoke Broadway. Perhaps it was the news earlier on Wednesday that Mr. Reich and Stephen Sondheim, long mutual admirers, would be appearing together in January as part of Lincoln Center’s American Songbook series, but moments in the Quartet had the melancholy yet buoyant, confident feel of Sondheim songs like “Finishing the Hat,” from “Sunday in the Park with George,” which Mr. Reich has set for solo piano. (At least one critic at the world premiere in London two weeks ago thought similarly.)

Colin Currie The New York Times • October 30, 2014 page 2 of 2

Dissonances occasionally pop out and harmonies elegantly darken, only to brighten again. This is pleasant, easy, uplifting listening. The Quartet’s placement on the program was apt: As far as nourishment, it lies somewhere between the palate cleanser that is “Clapping Music” and the feast of “Drumming.”

COLIN CURRIE

Philadelphia Inquirer March 24, 2013

Delightfully nasty P.S. to Wagner's Ring cycle BY DAVID PATRICK STEARNS

Sagas are made for sequels.

But whoever thought Wagner's 16-hour Der Ring des Nibelungen would have a loud, delightfully nasty concerto for a

postscript? American composer Christopher Rouse gave the opera's villain Alberich the last word in the form of a

percussion/orchestra work that he calls a "fantasy," reflecting the piece's freewheeling lack of usual concerto formality.

Played Friday by the Philadelphia Orchestra with guest percussionist Colin Currie, Der gerettete Alberich (Alberich

Saved) was a bit of a hit - and perhaps not just because this is a Wagner-starved town. Even if it's not among my

favorite Rouse pieces, it displays his ever-engaging personality, with intense, eerie stillness followed by explosions

seemingly inspired by Led Zeppelin, whose late drummer John Bonham cast a welcome shadow over the piece.

With the soloist treated as a quasi-theatrical protagonist, Currie made a stagy entrance, dressed in black and cutting a

sleek figure, after the piece had started; later, he snatched guest conductor Andrey Boreyko's baton to use on one of

many percussion instruments.

Though said not to have a specific narrative, the one-movement piece feels like a two-part portrayal of the love-starved

dwarf who steals the Rhine Maidens' gold after they mock his advances. At first, it's heavy on Wagner quotations in

something close to their original orchestrations, progressing toward a near-death experience for the soloist with a quiet,

long-held note from the orchestra suggesting a possible path to the hereafter.

Then, after the Bonham-like cadenza suggesting a resurrection, the second half has the percussionist dominating the

orchestra, rather than just interacting with it. The Wagner quotes are still there - especially the music Alberich sings

when he renounces love for gold - but they're twisted around, Alberich-like, firsthand expressions of the character

rather than an outside observation of him. It's as if he finally nabbed the ring that will let him rule the world - and is

ruling it.

The 1997 piece was initially championed by Evelyn Glennie (who played it here in 1998), but Currie is a worthy

successor, especially given his precise ear for sound even in the most bombastic moments. Comparing the piece on

recordings and performed live, the tactile quality of the instruments made the experience much more rich. The

orchestra stuck to him every step of the way.

Rouse was followed by Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5 - no-lose programming given that this piece has been at the

core of the orchestra's repertoire forever. But Boreyko yet again turned in the sort of measured, controlled performance

that made you wonder if he was German rather than Russian.

One wants to like him: He is dashing, assured, and has orchestras in places I like (Bern) and respect (Düsseldorf). But

Wolfgang Sawallisch showed how Germanic, middle-of-the-road Tchaikovsky could be far more interesting than this.

One of the symphony's hallmarks is its beautifully calculated peaks and valleys. With Boreyko, the valleys were deep

and lacked fresh air. The orchestra played well but dutifully.

COLIN CURRIE

News OK February 5, 2013

Colin Currie makes spectacular local debut BY RICK ROGERS

There's nothing quite like the visceral, sonic impact of a symphony orchestra operating at full tilt. Yes, a shimmering

pianissimo can be truly sublime, but when you combine dynamic strings, whirling woodwinds, roaring brass and thundering

percussion, it's a musical feast for the ears that quite honestly takes one's breath away.

The Oklahoma City Philharmonic's recent “Motion & Emotion” concert offered an entire program filled with such passages:

A celebratory fanfare, a masterful concerto and excerpts from one of the symphonic literature's most beautiful ballet scores.

The orchestra's brass and percussion sections kicked off the evening with Aaron Copland's stirring “Fanfare for the Common

Man.” The title is misleading as this is no ordinary curtain raiser. Explosive percussion ushers in this three-minute fanfare,

one followed by majestic declamations by the brass in ever-changing combinations.

The work's extreme ranges and exposed textures revealed a few minor flaws but this is a work whose success must be

measured on its cumulative effect, and this tribute to the American spirit got the evening off to a resounding start.

Scottish percussionist Colin Currie made his Oklahoma City Philharmonic debut in the state premiere of Jennifer Higdon's

2005 “Percussion Concerto.” The Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, born in New York in 1962, created a masterful

showpiece for the work's dedicatee.

Currie has been a passionate advocate for this concerto, a work that asks the soloist to perform on 17 instruments, from tuned

percussion (marimba, vibraphone, crotales) to various drums (bass, tom-toms, timbales, bongos) and assorted incidentals

(gong, temple blocks, cymbals) that create a musical palette of tremendous aural variety.

Currie is a masterful performer whose finest attributes — confidence, flexibility, musical intelligence and dazzling virtuosity

— combined to give this stunningly complex concerto an irresistible immediacy. It's a display piece for certain, but Currie

made it into much more.

Whether in the hushed tremolos of the marimba, the metallic passagework of the vibraphone, the clatter of the temple blocks

or the explosive poundings of the timbales and tom-toms, Currie wove these disparate elements into a dramatic piece with

remarkable finesse.

The orchestra's percussion section — Dave Steffens, Lance Drege, Roger Owens and Stuart Langsam — performed their

equally critical role in this concerto's success through precise and colorful exchanges with the soloist. Joel Levine kept taut

reins over the proceedings which culminated in a spectacular performance.

The evening's finale, Tchaikovsky's suite from “Swan Lake,” which Levine bookended with a prologue and dramatic finale,

served as a sort of prelude for the Oklahoma City Ballet's April staging of the full-length ballet.

Levine carefully shaped the work with remarkable taste and musical understanding. There were lovely solos by oboist Lisa

Harvey-Reed, harpist Gaye LeBlanc, cellist Jonathan Ruck and concertmaster Gregory Lee.

Levine's expert pacing and balancing of the orchestral sections through an ever-changing panorama of waltzes and

nationalistic dances reminded listeners of this orchestra's remarkable virtuosic capabilities. It's a concert that won't soon be

forgotten.

COLIN CURRIE

Financial Times June 11, 2012

New York Philharmonic, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York BY MARTIN BERNHEIMER

A change of venue and conductor for a showcase of contemporary daring in three bracing guises

Dramatically labelled Contact!, it took place not in the wide open spaces of Avery Fisher Hall but in the intimate auditorium of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The conductor was not Alan Gilbert but a virtuosic guest, David

Robertson. The transparent ensembles, varied in size, never reached full symphonic force. Happy talk, both enlightened

and enlightening, preceded the music. The programme proved equally demanding of performer and listener.

The repertory sampled contemporary daring in three bracing guises. First came a world premiere by the grand old

iconoclast Elliott Carter, still a creative wonder at 103. Mentally if not physically spry, he took the stage for some wry

commentary. Next on the agenda: a severe US premiere by Michael Jarrell, still a relative baby at 53. Finally: a golden

oldie by Pierre Boulez, finished in 1993 when the eternal enfant terrible was only 68.

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.

Jarrell’s Nachlese Vb (Liederzyklus) toys smartly with a sonnet by Luís de Góngora (1561-1627). It treats florid

translations, French and German, to otherworldly flights of disjointed Sprechgesang, a lofty soprano embellishing the

apparently expressionist orchestral fabric. For all its intentional obscurity, the piece is weirdly, daringly, coldly poignant. Charlotte Dobbs sang her eerie lines with breathless accuracy, even an illusion of ease. If the ultimate

impression suggested Pierrot lunaire on acid, that may not be a bad thing.

Boulez’s . . . explosante-fixe  . . . , dominated by the brilliant flautist Robert Langevin, remains an exquisite essay in compressed chaos, a climactic fusion of acoustic and electronic manipulation, a telling balance of vigour and rigour. It

makes one forget popular theories about any changing of the avant-garde.

COLIN CURRIE

New York Times June 10, 2012

Poems in Four Voices, a Concerto in Two BY STEVE SMITH

New York Philharmonic’s Contact! Series at the Met

That David Robertson is a superb conductor of contemporary classical music hardly needs repeating. Evidence is everywhere in reviews worldwide and in the vivid memories of those who have heard concerts he has led. But what

makes Mr. Robertson one of the most extraordinary musical advocates of our day has just as much to do with what he

does off the podium.

The latest demonstration came during the first of two concerts in the New York Philharmonic’s Contact! series,

presented in the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium of the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Friday evening. In the

context of an enticing program that included, miracle of continuing miracles, a premiere by the 103-year-old Elliott

Carter, a single moment exemplified Mr. Robertson’s gift.

It happened after the second piece in the program, “Nachlese Vb (Liederzyklus)”, by the Swiss composer Michael

Jarrell. The piece (whose title roughly translates as “Gleanings”) was a song cycle with a twist. Starting with his own

earlier setting of a poem by Luis de Góngora y Argote in a French translation, Mr. Jarrell added three further movements: a German translation, a wholly instrumental impression and, finally, a setting of the original Spanish verse.

The result was intoxicating: four distinct reactions to the same impulse, with subtle but palpable alterations in color and

emphasis. Charlotte Dobbs, a soprano, illuminated those shifts with precision and sensitivity. The Philharmonic players

provided iridescent accompaniment.

When it was done, Mr. Robertson scanned the audience, then leapt from the stage and trotted out to acknowledge Mr.

Jarrell. That act, simple and straightforward, crystallized the joy with which Mr. Robertson consistently infuses the act

of bringing new music to life. His passion is infectious.

The rest of the program, hosted by the radio personality John Schaefer, was equally edifying. Mr. 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.

Before the final piece, Pierre Boulez’s “... explosante-fixe ... ,” Mr. Robertson spoke at length, sharing not just historical background but also personal reminiscences of time spent with Mr. Boulez. Part Carl Sagan and part

Midwestern evangelist, Mr. Robertson conveyed heady concepts and convictions with personable charm and entrancing

zeal.

It worked. You could not miss the striking allusions to Stravinsky in Mr. Boulez’s splendid score. And I doubt that

anyone failed to recall Mr. Robertson’s just-related anecdote about Mr. Boulez’s delight at a play of lights and clouds

viewed from an airplane window as the flutists Robert Langevin, Mindy Kaufman and Alexandra Sopp fluttered and soared in electronically enhanced reveries.

COLIN CURRIE

Ottawa Citizen May 16, 2012

Review: NACO's penultimate program of season lives up to

expectations BY RICHARD TODD

REVIEW: National Arts Centre Orchestra

With José Luis Gomez, conductor and Colin Currie, percussion

Southam Hall, National Arts Centre

Reviwed Wednesday May 16.

The National Arts Centre Orchestra's penultimate program of the season included four works. One of them, James

MacMillan's Veni, Veni Emmanuel, was new to this listener and, I should imagine, almost everyone else in the audience.

Nevertheless, on the world stage it is uncommonly popular for a modern concerto. It has been performed almost 500

times since its 1992 debut and percussionist Colin Currie, this week's soloist, has himself done it about 120 times.

It's a big work, a kind of concerto-fantasia on the 15th-century Advent hymn that in English we call O Come, O Come Emmanuel. Although it is a sound work, audiences would probably find it less accessible if it were not for the

spectacular virtuosity required of the percussion soloist.

In any case, it received a standing ovation after Wednesday's performance. Currie really was impressive.

Earlier the program opened with Rossini's ever-popular Overture to the Barber of Seville. This is a work that every

orchestra can play standing on its head, but there was freshness of feeling to the performance, making it easy to

overlook the extreme familiarity of the score. Spanish Conductor José Luis Gomez and the orchestra made it sound youthful and spring-like.

This no doubt appropriate for the overture to a comic opera; on the other hand, one wonders how it would be

interpreted if it were remembered in connection with one of the two tragedies with which Rossini had used it. Hard to

imagine, isn't it?

Next came Haydn's Symphony no. 100 in G, the Military Symphony. In its own way, this symphony is a work of

greater substance than the Rossini, but it can benefit from a lightness of touch that works suits both nicely.

Wednesday's performance possessed that and many other virtues. It was high-spirited and well played. The slow movement was especially pleasing with a few unusual, but effective, instances of balance between the instruments.

The evening concluded with Ginastera's ballet suite Estancia. This is a nice piece that demonstrates that the composer

knew the music of Stravinsky and Bartók, if he didn’t quite share their genius. The pounding rhythms and often colourful orchestration make the score a crowd-pleaser and always a good way to send the audience home happy.

COLIN CURRIE

Los Angeles Times May 10, 2012

Review: Green Umbrella's percussion bash, gripping 'Recital 1' BY MARK SWED

The L.A. Phil's Joseph Pereira impresses with a new percussion concerto, while Kiera Duffy rivetingly sings Luciano

Berio's 'Recital 1 (For Cathy)' in the latest Green Umbrella program.

For the mad month of May, the Los Angeles Philharmonic has embarked on a wildly ambitious, slightly mad operatic

mission.

It includes a Walt Disney Concert Hall staging of Mozart's "Don Giovanni" next week and the world premiere of John Adams' large-scale opera-oratorio, "The Gospel According to the Other Mary," at month's end.

The adventure began Tuesday night with a rare and important performance of Luciano Berio's elaborately operatic

study in meaningful madness, "Recital 1 (For Cathy)," selected as part of Gustavo Dudamel's only Green Umbrella

program this season. Dudamel, however, was nowhere to be seen Tuesday.

His car was in its spot in the Disney lot, but he was perhaps squirreled away in his office burning the midnight oil.

Adams' massive score arrived only last week, necessitating the L.A. Phil music director to marshal his time to learn a

new 21/2 -hour work. The last-minute replacement was Jeffrey Milarsky, who must have had his own late nights of mad study, with a week's worth for a program that also included the world premiere of a substantial and impressive

new percussion concerto by the L.A. Phil's principal timpanist, Joseph Pereira.

It would misrepresent the evening not to note a sense of disappointment that could be felt in the hall. Green Umbrella

loyalists are beginning to complain that the series seems to have taken on a lesser priority with the orchestra. Adams himself was to have conducted the previous concert in the new music series, and he, too, needing the time to finish the

"Other Mary," was replaced by Milarsky. But then Berio was notorious for missing deadlines. Sadly, the great Italian

composer, who died nine years ago, never got around to the L.A. Phil piece he was supposed to write for the opening of Disney Hall (or whenever), or the two operas promised for Los Angeles Opera.

Although "Recital 1 (for Cathy)" was grippingly sung by Kiera Duffy and competently performed by the L.A. Phil New

Music Group under Milarsky, it might nonetheless have benefited from more attention and thought. This was the last of a series of pioneering works in extended vocal techniques — and also extended emotional techniques — that Berio

wrote for the legendarily versatile soprano Cathy Berberian. Berio, who was married to Berberian from 1950 until their

tempestuous breakup in '64, wrote not just for her remarkable multi-octave voice and her stylistic versatility (her

repertory ranged from Monteverdi to the Beatles) but also for the complete singer.

"Recital 1" was written in 1972 when Berberian was no longer Berio's wife but still his muse. "Recital 1" is what

happens when they dared to look at what that meant.

A singer enters the stage, distractedly singing a Monteverdi madrigal. A harpsichord and chamber ensemble are on hand, but her accompanist is not yet there; the singer hardly notices at first. Her mind flies from one thing to the next.

She sings snippets of some 40 different vocal works she knows. She interrupts herself continually in a collage-like

stream of consciousness. She is on a personal and musical roller coaster.

Colin Currie

Los Angeles Times May 10, 2012

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A wardrobe mistress comes and goes carrying away items of jewelry and the singer's shoes and, in the end, the singer

herself.

Duffy may not have revealed Berberian's great expressive range, but she did have an exciting command of a difficult score. What was off was the amplification, which made the spoken text difficult to understand. What was wrong was a

projection of translations of the vocal music, all sung in the original languages (the spoken text is mostly in English).

Berio did not intend those words to matter — the selections were not chosen for their textual meaning. He did mean for

the spoken text to be understood.

Still, an understated stage direction by James Darrah and Milarsky's careful conducting were effective, as were the

actress Madeline Harris, who played the wardrobe mistress-nurse, and pianist Joanne Pearce Martin, who was the

colorful accompanist.

The first half of the program was a percussion bash. Pereira's concerto, written for Colin Currie as soloist, is oddly

restrained, given that most percussion concertos are instrumental extravaganzas. In the first half, the soloist is restricted

to a collection of drums. In the second, he sticks with marimbas, from which Currie got beautifully rich sonorities. The orchestral writing is intriguing, especially when a lively brass theme in the beginning becomes fractured into ghostly

string echoes. The carefully constructed half-hour work invites a second hearing.

The program began with the West Coast premiere of "Alloy" for steel drum ensemble by Andy Akiho, who is working

on his doctorate at Princeton. It shows in 10 minutes a wonderfully engaging variety of sounds a dozen players can get from Caribbean drums (with the help of found materials, including drums made from satellite dishes). Akiho is a young

composer to watch.

COLIN CURRIE

San Jose Mercury News March 31, 2012

Review: Buoyant Baltimore Symphony bedazzles a Berkeley crowd BY GEORGIA ROWE

Amid considerable fanfare -- two fanfares, to be exact -- the Baltimore Symphony arrived in Berkeley Friday night to

perform the first of two programs at Zellerbach Hall on the UC Berkeley campus.

Presented by Cal Performances, Friday's presentation of works by Copland, Prokofiev, Joan Tower and Jennifer

Higdon launched a two-day residency by the venerable East Coast ensemble under music director Marin Alsop (a

second program, scheduled for Saturday night, features Richard Einhorn's "Voices of Light," accompanying a screening of Carl Dreyer's 1928 silent film, "The Passion of Joan of Arc.") Bay Area audiences are acquainted with

Alsop as the adventurous music director of the annual Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, based in Santa Cruz.

But her work in Baltimore -- where she became music director in 2007, making her the first woman to head a major American orchestra -- has often taken a more traditional path.

If anyone was wondering which music Alsop would favor at Friday's concert, the answer was a little of both. To

demonstrate the orchestra's strengths in the standard repertoire, she conducted Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man" and Prokofiev's Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major. Contemporary works were represented in Tower's "Fanfare for

the Uncommon Woman," and Higdon's Percussion Concerto.

The fanfares came first. Built on broad, forthright (and easily recognizable) statements, Copland's 1942 "Fanfare" is a favorite with orchestras everywhere. Alsop led a shapely performance and followed it with Tower's 1987 tribute piece,

which uses the same array of brass and percussion in a restless, more insistent framework. As played by the Baltimore musicians, the contrasts were striking.

Higdon's splashy Percussion Concerto came next, in a big, go-for-broke performance featuring Colin Currie as soloist.

Higdon composed the 2004 score for the Scottish percussionist, giving him a huge battery of instruments to work with: marimbas, vibraphone, wood blocks, gongs, trap drums and congas are all featured in the 40-minute work.

Friday's performance began quietly, with Currie playing subdued chords on the marimba; the instrument's sound was

rich and low. The percussion section entered next -- Higdon sets up a delightful tag-team effect between the soloist and the section players -- with the rest of the orchestra following close behind. As the sound grew larger, denser, Currie

moved to higher-pitched instruments -- a smaller marimba, pieces made of metal and wood, and drums played with

sticks.

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.

After intermission, Prokofiev's Fifth Symphony also received a dynamic performance. Alsop introduced the first

movement's weighty blocks of sound in a firm, well-paced rhythmic flow; the woodwinds were outstanding here, both

Colin Currie

San Jose Mercury News March 31, 2012

page 2 of 2

in the principal theme for flutes and bassoon, and the second theme for flute and oboe. But there was fine playing

throughout the orchestra. The violins voiced with warmth and definition, the dusky low strings sang, and the horns

played with a crisp, assertive edge.

Alsop got excellent results in the scherzo as well; there's something wonderfully modern about this music, and the

conductor led a brisk, breezy performance. She emphasized the Adagio's lyrical qualities without sacrificing its

brooding themes. The finale was marvelous -- under Alsop's direction, as edgy and ebullient as any new music.

The conductor and her orchestra returned for a single encore: Borodin's vivacious "Polovtsian Dances.

COLIN CURRIE

Orange County Register March 29, 2012

Alsop, Baltimore Symphony shine in O.C. BY TIMOTHY MANGAN

Review: A female-centric program is highlighted by Higdon’s Percussion Concerto.

The Baltimore Symphony, which gave the only Southern California performance of its mini West Coast tour Wednesday night in Segerstrom Concert Hall, has declared its 2011-2012 season a celebration of revolutionary women.

To commemorate the 600th anniversary of the birth of Joan of Arc, the orchestra is offering performances of

Honegger's oratorio "Jeanne d'Arc au Bûcher" and Richard Einhorn's score for the silent film "The Passion of Joan of Arc" during the season, among other female-centric works.

Of course, to celebrate revolutionary women, or at least significant ones, the Baltimoreans merely need to step on stage

with their conductor, Marin Alsop, who is now in her fifth season as the group's music director and who is the first woman to head a major orchestra in this country. Wednesday's agenda, with Alsop on the podium, added two works by

female composers to make up a genuine ladies night at the symphony.

Jennifer Higdon's Grammy-winning Percussion Concerto took the center spot in the program. It certainly is an entertaining show, especially with percussionist Colin Currie as soloist, running around stage to his various set ups and

pounding the living daylights out of them. To my ears at least, Higdon has managed to avoid one of the pitfalls of

percussion concertos – that most percussion instruments are basically inexpressive of human emotion; try saying "my heart aches" with a snare drum – by making her work a virtuoso showpiece, fun to watch and blistering to the ear.

Not that there aren't quiet and moody bits in the piece. Higdon begins with soft, harmonized tremolos on the solo marimba that sound almost tender, and returns to the general area now and then. But the allegros were something else,

snazzy, frenetic and wild, with Currie rattling away on pitched and non-pitched percussion rapidly and compellingly.

His forays to the drum set rocked. His work on a wood-block, cymbal and castanet array had a mechanistic feel, especially with its interplay with the orchestra. And his solos with the three other percussionists in the orchestra made

nothing less than a glorious noise.

The orchestra part is accessible, muscular and busy for the most part, with a big brass theme and Americana-like section. Alsop led it enthusiastically.

Her moment, and the orchestra's, to shine, though, came after intermission, with a performance of Prokofiev's

Symphony No. 5. We've heard this work a few times in recent seasons here, including with some world class ensembles. If this performance didn't quite reach the sheer luxury and virtuosic brilliance of those others, it had plenty

going for it.

The Baltimore Symphony sounded bright and gritty. The violins, well unified, laid into their parts with vehemence. The lead trumpet player allowed no one in his way. The brass section, in general, could be unkind to the strings, but the

group overall has an attractively open sound, the woodwinds a nice pungency. You could hear things in the score that

more blended ensembles smooth over.

And Alsop dug into the work unrelentingly. Her phrasing never became heavy or overbearing, though, thanks to her

animated rhythms, purposeful accents and forward momentum. It was a fiery and thrilling performance.

Colin Currie

Orange County Register March 29, 2012

page 2 of 2

With a rhetorical wink, Alsop opened the concert with Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man" and followed it

immediately with Joan Tower's "Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman," a similarly instrumented work to the Copland

(with more percussion) and similar in style, though jagged and ornamental (female?) where Copland is plain and spacious (male?). Alsop conducted both effectively, in straightforward fashion.

The encore (after the Prokofiev) was the last little bit of Borodin's "Polovtsian Dances," such a last little bit, in fact, that

the piece is for all intents and purposes over. A little odd, but tasty enough.

COLIN CURRIE

Los Angeles Times March 29, 2012

Music review: The Baltimore Symphony at Segerstrom Concert Hall BY MARK SWED

The Baltimore Symphony began its first West Coast tour in 24 long years at Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall

on Wednesday night. The last appearance had been at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, and at the time, there were two unusual things about the orchestra. It had an American music director, David Zinman, who championed living

American composers. And it had a woman associate conductor, Catherine Comet.

But that was then. Don’t call me a woman conductor, Comet defensively told The Times. And Zinman did not tour American music here.

The last quarter century has not been without progress. In her fifth season as Baltimore’s music director, Marin Alsop

is a woman conductor, and she has broken the highest glass ceiling in the orchestral world thus far. She is popular and brings the Baltimore Symphony deserved attention. She is a proud champion of American composers, dead and alive.

She also goes to bat for women composers. And she does not pretend otherwise.

An uncommon woman, Alsop began her program Wednesday by pairing Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man” with Joan Tower’s cheeky “Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman.” That was followed by Jennifer Higdon’s Percussion

Concerto. It is, unfortunately, a commonplace concerto, but Alsop ended with a dynamic performance of Prokofiev’s

Symphony No. 5.

If there was a theme, it was the common versus the uncommon, rather than a battle of the sexes. Both Copland’s

fanfare, which has become almost an unofficial U.S. national anthem, and Prokofiev’s symphony are stirring products of World War II. Ironically, both pieces display communist leanings, Copland having been a lefty and Prokofiev having

repatriated with Soviet Russia after years abroad.

This wasn’t savvy programming. Three years ago, Valery Gergiev brought his London Symphony Orchestra to Segerstrom with a rivetingly impassioned, deeply Russian reading of Prokofiev's Fifth, something no American is

likely to match. Alsop, her performance the highlight of the evening, didn’t try. Instead, she made the symphony sound

intriguingly American.

She is a conductor who insists on rhythmic cogency, sometimes to the point of hammering. That can be an enlivening

approach, and it was here. She seats her orchestra with most of the higher-pitched instruments on her left and the lower-

pitched ones on her right, creating old-fashioned stereo effects. The Baltimore brass players don’t hold back. The orchestra has color, especially in its woodwinds. It was wonderful to hear the violins’ competing rhythms of two

against three in the slow movement as tartly distinct, not Romantic and misty. The Finale was winningly American, our

best go-for-broke manner. In doing so, Alsop did something new. She made a neo-Classical counterrevolutionary symphony feel newly revolutionary.

Higdon’s 2005 concerto made a different kind a statement. In the 1930s, California composers led the percussion

revolution, and it has been going strong in this state ever since. Lou Harrison was one of the leaders. For the last two decades, Alsop has been music director of the Cabrillo Festival, which was started by Harrison in Aptos (now moved to

nearby Santa Cruz), and she has determinedly shifted its emphasis from its experimental West Coast roots.

Colin Currie

Los Angeles Times March 29, 2012

page 2 of 2

In an interview in The Times this week, Higdon said that she has rejected the avant-garde that the West Coast school

helped spawn. Perhaps that is one reason why her music, which is widely played by American orchestras, has been

neglected by the venturesome Los Angeles Philharmonic and San Francisco Symphony. Alsop, though, has championed Higdon at Cabrillo, where the Percussion Concerto received its West Coast premiere in 2010. Alsop also

recorded it with the London Philharmonic and Colin Currie, for whom it was written, as soloist. It won a Grammy.

Currie, who was the soloist Wednesday, was his usual impressive self. He had plenty of wood, metal and skin on which to do his thing. He began with pretty marimba tremolo effects, a cliché in Hollywood, echoed by a marimba in the

orchestra percussion, echoing being a cliché in 20th century concertos. The orchestra’s first big brass statement had a

John Williams-lite flavor. Twenty three minutes later, the punchy ending had a John Adams-lite flavor, along with some rock drumming.

All percussion concertos are riots of color and feature percussionists scurrying from instrument to instrument, and so

does this one. The point of the percussion revolution, however, has been that it provides composers with new sounds and new ways of thinking about sound. Higdon plays it safe. But does that does mean, at least here in the heart of the

percussion revolution, that her counterrevolutionary percussion concerto is not as common as it may seem and sound?

COLIN CURRIE

Washington Post March 23, 2012

Music: BSO performs Higdon, Tchaikovsky works BY STEPHEN BROOKES

It takes a certain gutsiness to open a concert with not just one, but two big and brassy fanfares — you had better follow

through with something worth the buildup. But no one’s ever accused Baltimore Symphony Orchestra Conductor Marin Alsop of not having guts, and on Thursday night at the Music Center at Strathmore she pulled out all the stops

and delivered two huge, spectacular works — including a percussion concerto by Jennifer Higdon that may be one of

the most exciting orchestral works of the past decade.

The fanfares themselves were agreeable enough. Aaron Copland’s much-loved “Fanfare for the Common Man” was

paired back to back with Joan Tower’s less well known “Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman,” and they made a cute

couple: Where Copland paints in broad, simple and masculine strokes, Tower rushes busily here and there, generating lots of energy if not the same luminous and stately power as Copland.

It wasn’t clear whether the fanfares’ titles were meant to refer directly to the next two composers on the program —

you would have a tough time selling Tchaikovsky as “the common man,” after all — but “uncommon woman” fits -Higdon perfectly. One of the most imaginative and uninhibited composers on the American scene, she embued her

Percussion Concerto of 2005 with so much kinetic vitality and colorful invention that it sounded at times like the entire

orchestra was tumbling gleefully downhill. The half-hour work was a tour de force for percussion virtuoso Colin Currie, who bounded back and forth across the stage while manning a small arsenal of instruments — evoking

everything from tribal rhythms to Buddy Rich — as Alsop led the orchestra through a musical landscape of strange and almost unearthly beauty. A brilliant performance, and huge fun, any way you cut it.

Alsop also managed a minor miracle in the program’s second half, which was devoted to Tchaikovsky’s Fifth

Symphony. Yes, it’s a tired old war horse. And yes, it’s awash in musty 19th-century themes of Fate and Hope and Despair and whatnot. And yes, it ends in a fit of over-the-top fist-pumping that’s caused millions of eyes to roll since

its premiere in 1888. But Alsop treated it all with great respect, turning in a big-boned, perfectly paced reading that

achieved both grandeur and a sense of deep human tenderness; a genuinely profound, personal and very moving performance.

COLIN CURRIE

Baltimore Sun March 23, 2012

At the BSO: Jennifer Higdon's Percussion Concerto is a smash BY TIM SMITH

Just a hunch on my part, but I think that West Coast audiences are going to enjoy the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s

visit that starts next week.

A sample of what’s in store for folks in California and Oregon is contained on the program the BSO performs this

weekend at Meyerhoff Hall. One item, in particular, is bound to go over well out there, just as it did Thursday night at

the Strathmore Center -- Jennifer Higdon’s Percussion Concerto.

Higdon, one of the contemporary composers regularly championed by BSO music director Marin Alsop, writes in a

style that is easily accessible to those whose ears are happily stuck in the 19th-century.

But Higdon is also solidly, naturally connected to the sound-world of pop/rock music, so listeners from that side of the

aisle can feel thoroughly comfortable with her work.

In this concerto from 2005, Higdon unleashes a kinetic storm of urban beats, balanced by ...

passages of Asian-influenced musings that exploit the most seductive qualities of the diverse percussion instruments

assigned to the soloist.

Adding an unusual layer to the work is Higdon’s decision to treat the orchestra’s percussion section as a second

protagonist. That means a whole lot of beating going on at times.

The result is that the rest of the orchestra, all those strings and things, sometimes seems like an afterthought. But that doesn’t much matter in the end, for the concerto is filled with absorbing musical ideas that are taken in interesting,

often foot-stomping directions.

The piece was written for Colin Currie, a magician with a marimba, a devil with a drum. You can tell how much

Higdon enjoyed putting him through his paces; he has to dart across the stage from one set of instruments to another, usually with mere seconds to spare. She also took full advantage of Currie’s expressive abilities, which are as

impressive as his technical wizardry.

On Thursday, the soloist’s brilliant performance was complemented by the flair of the BSO’s percussionists. There was some lively work from the orchestra, too, along the way, and Alsop kept all the forces on the same tight track.

The other big item on the program is Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5. By now, ears should be accustomed to Alsop’s

approach to this composer, vastly different in many ways from that of her predecessor Yuri Temirkanov, yet persuasive on its own terms.

Where Temirkanov found cosmic struggles and dark shadows, not to mention broad tempos, in the Fifth, Alsop takes a

lighter, faster view overall. But she hardly slights the fundamental drama in the score. It’s more that she lets you feel

early on everything can and will turn out all right.

Thursday's performance had an engaging sweep and abundant character. The waltz movement, for example, was

shaped with considerable gracefulness, while the finale surged forward on an increasingly potent electric charge.

Colin Currie

Baltimore Sun March 23, 2012

page 2 of 2

The orchestra sounded terrific, with lots of warmth from the strings and vivid color from the woodwinds and brass. In

the second movement, there were glowing solos from principal horn Phil Mjnds principal oboe Katherine Needleman.

At the start of the concert, Alsop offered one of her favorite pairings: Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man” and Joan Tower’s “Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman.” They both sounded just a little shy of spot-on.

MIRÓ QUARTET & COLIN CURRIE

Washington Post April 1, 2011

Music review: Colin Currie and the Miro Quartet at the Terrace

Theater BY JOE BANNO

Composer Steve Reich cast a long shadow over Thursday’s Terrace Theater recital by percussionist Colin Currie and the Miro Quartet. Reich’s own piece, “Nagoya Marimbas” — which had Currie playing a live, mirror-image marimba

part half a beat behind a recorded marimba solo — offered classic Reichian minimalism in its repetitive rhythmic cells

and pointillist bursts of color. Next to that piece, if Michael Torke’s chamber-scaled concerto for marimba and string

quartet, “Mojave,” sounded like Reich-lite, the comparison didn’t diminish the work’s breezy charms, where a blend of looser-limbed minimalism and feel-good neo-romanticism evoked the desert car trips Torke regularly takes between

Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

Steve Martland counts Reich as an influence on his own music, and his piece “Starry Night” put the Miro strings through their paces in writing that sounded as if furious, Paganini-like virtuoso riffs were locked into some sort of tape

loop and then broken into repeated melodic shards cut off by fraught silences. The expanding and contracting rhythmic

figures in Louis Andriessen’s witty and fiendishly difficult work for wood blocks and marimba, “Woodpecker” (played

dazzlingly by Currie) , brought Reich’s early percussion pieces to mind. Dave Maric’s “Run Chime” filtered Reich’s perpetual-motion-machine style through a progressive jazz lens.

Even the moodily dissonant score “Since Brass, nor Stone . . . ” by the anything-but-Reichian modernist Alexander

Goehr, featured obsessively repeated phrases on a battery of percussion instruments. And, thanks to the Miro’s lean, febrile readings of Schubert’s “Quartettsatz” and Barber’s Adagio for Strings, we managed to hear proto-minimalist

leanings in these decidedly old-world scores.

COLIN CURRIE

Indianapolis Star March 19, 2011

ISO's 'Incantations' evokes Arctic shamans BY JAY HARVEY

There's a bit of famous repartee in Shakespeare's "Henry IV" that starts when the Welsh windbag Glendower declares "I can

call spirits from the vasty deep." That's the boast the Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara undertakes to stand behind in

"Incantations," a 2009 concerto for solo percussion and orchestra that's the centerpiece of this weekend's Indianapolis

Symphony Orchestra program.

And on Friday night, with the wizardry of Colin Currie in the solo role and evocative backing by the ISO under the baton of

Robert Spano, Rautavaara seemed to go a long way toward effecting the power of the Arctic shamans he cites in his program

note for the piece.

As the 22-minute concerto got under way, however, the portentous blandness with which the orchestra introduces the soloist

called to mind Hotspur's retort to Glendower: "Why, so can I, and so can any man. But will they come when you do call for

them?"

The leaden obviousness of those initial measures soon yielded to 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.

Rautavaara's orchestration becomes more subtle behind the soloist than it was when announcing him. Particularly in the

haunting second movement, with the solo part focused on the vibraphone, the accompaniment responds to both the

meditative and the stirring aspects of the solo. It's nature coming alive and producing sympathetic vibrations to the shaman's

call.

The finale combines dance and trance, climaxing in an explosive cadenza, in which Currie fleetly brought into play the

whole kit and caboodle, precisely timed and ordered as rituals tend to be. The answer to Hotspur's question in this case is:

Yes, the spirits do come when Rautavaara, through an adroit interpreter like Currie, calls for them.

Spano opened the concert with the most famous piece by Rautavaara's countryman Jean Sibelius: "Finlandia" was given a

performance that cradled the famous tune in an integral way within the stormy and stirring music that surrounds it.

After intermission, in performances of two tone poems by Ottorino Respighi, the conductor brought a knack for linking

disparate elements even more impressively to the fore. In scores so focused on displays of color as "The Fountains of Rome"

and "The Pines of Rome," Spano paid attention to their interactions, not just their pictorial riches.

Everything proceeded with lively deliberation. "The Pines of the Appian Way," the concert's spectacular finale depicting

Rome's triumphant legions on the march, unfolded just as patiently as the daybreak in the first of the "Fountains."

Before the ISO took the stage, the best thing about Music for All's Honor Orchestra of America's brief concert was a guest

appearance by the seductive fiddler Mark O'Connor, playing with the locally based "all-star" youth orchestra the third

movement of his "Fiddle Concerto." He has provided a nice vehicle for himself in this episodic music, allowing him to

explore the reflective and exuberant sides of a genre he has done so much to make art out of.

COLIN CURRIE

The Guardian (UK) July 27, 2010

PROMS 2010 BBC NOW/Fischer

Royal Albert Hall, London BY GEORGE HALL

The burgeoning genre of the percussion concerto offers experiences that are often at least as pleasurable

visually – with the soloist rampaging around the platform, hitting almost anything that comes within reach –

as musically, and frequently more so. Simon Holt's 2008 A Table of Noises, given its first London

performance here with virtuoso percussionist Colin Currie and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under

Thierry Fischer, is exceptional in having enough to say musically to need no visuals – though, of course, it

does have them.

The title refers both to the name of a Peruvian folk drum, the mesa de ruidos, imported into Spanish flamenco

music and included in the piece; and to one of Holt's own relatives, his great-uncle Ashworth Hutton, whose

disability meant that he kept all necessities to hand on a nearby table. The work also celebrates Hutton's dog

and an eccentric neighbour, and Holt has entirely succeeded in translating their individual characteristics into

music, pure and simple.

Pure, because 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. The subtlety and

variety of Holt's musical material – much of the piece is quiet, though regularly uneasy and occasionally

manic – held the attention easily over its 30-minute span.

Fischer and the orchestra preceded it with a strikingly fierce account of Cherubini's Beethovenian Medée

overture, and a deft rendition of Schumann's charming Spring Symphony. They ended with a stylish

presentation of Strauss's Till Eulenspiegel, which managed real sonic sheen and glow, as well as being

vividly characterised.

COLIN CURRIE

London Evening Standard July 27, 2010

Proms 2010: BBC Now/Fischer

Unexpected adventures with noise from Thierry Fischer BY NICK KIMBERLEY

Violinists play violins, trumpeters play trumpets, but what do percussionists play? Percussion, of course, but

anything can be a percussion instrument, as long as it makes a noise when you hit it. Most percussion

concertos have the soloist leaping hither and yon to reach everything the composer throws at them. Simon

Holt’s a table of noises (no upper-case titles for Holt) is not like that.

Holt wrote it for Colin Currie, who’s capable of extrovert gymnastics. Presenting the London premiere with

the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under Thierry Fischer, he showed his thoughtful, team-player side. In

terms of inspiration, the concerto has a complex back story involving Holt’s taxidermist great-uncle, and the

movements have colourful titles like “a drawer full of eyes”. They’re enticing, but Holt’s music is sturdy

enough to survive without them.

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.

Some people approve of Proms audiences clapping between movements, others hate it. Here there was a

more unsettling development: applause while the opening movement of Schumann’s First Symphony was

still playing. Let’s hope it doesn’t presage a new trend. Fischer brought out the symphony’s sunny

exuberance, but he didn’t underplay the occasionally cloudy moment, encouraging the horns to a satisfyingly

mournful rasp while woodwinds flitted around with sprightly insouciance. The concert closed with a fruity

account of Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegel, its cheerful vulgarity only adding to its charm.

COLIN CURRIE

The Independent (UK) July 27, 2010

Prom 13: BBC National Orchestra of Wales/ Currie/Fischer, Royal

Albert Hall BY MICHAEL CHURCH

Making my way to my seat, I encounter Proms director Roger Wright in unusually pensive mood.

Schumann didn’t sell out the Royal Albert Hall yesterday, he says, and it’s even thinner for his ‘Spring’

Symphony tonight: he glumly quotes his predecessor John Drummond’s famous dictum, that there’s no hall

that looks so empty as this one when it’s half full.

Schumann may be quintessential core repertoire, but as Thierry Fischer leads the National Orchestra of Wales

into this ardently hopeful symphony, I too begin to wonder. It’s not that the music’s banal, though echoes of

the genuinely banal Mendelssohn crop up at many points: it just isn’t fired by genius the way Schumann’s

piano music is. When I was a child, I loved it because it epitomised the Proms, but now it seems about as

interesting as an old pair of pyjamas. The excellent performance given by Fischer and his band did nothing to

dispel my growing conviction that, by religiously scheduling this hallowed piece of the repertoire, Wright

and his colleagues are flogging, if not a dead horse, certainly one which will never again get up and run. It’s a

period piece, not a spurt of the eternal flame.

New works, we are told on the other hand, don’t put bums on seats, but those who happened by accident on

the London premiere of Simon Holt’s percussion concerto got a wonderful surprise. Its ingenious title, ‘a

table of noises’, denotes both a little Peruvian drum and also the table at which Holt’s taxidermist great-uncle

worked. Holt’s aim, with percussion-king Colin Currie at the controls, was to create a series of sonic tableaux

evoking aspects of his relative’s strange craft.

Each of the seven movements got an explicit visual cue, but although the linkage with the music was tenuous,

that didn’t matter. 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. This fascinating work deserves

a properly theatrical staging, next time it is performed.

COLIN CURRIE

Times Union May 23, 2010

Albany Symphony Orchestra @ EMPAC, 5/22/10 BY JOSEPH DALTON

TROY – There was plenty of color and drama in all four works on the Albany Symphony Orchestra’s annual American

Music Festival program Saturday night at EMPAC. The highlight, though, was from a Finnish composer.

Eighty-two year old Einojuhani Rautavaara completed his percussion concerto, “Incantations,” just last year for soloist Colin Currie. For being a piece centered on a huge battery of instruments that are whacked and banged, it was a very

soulful effort. A rapturous tune concluded the outer movements in the manner of Sibelius.

A moment of pure transcendence came near the end of the final cadenza. Against a long sustained note in the basses, Currie was busy with complex patterns on the marimba and drums. Suddenly he was on the vibraphone and the

ascension to its ringing metallic sound was magical and transporting.

Currie was also just fun to watch, a mix of athletic agility and studious focus.

Composer Stacy Garrop returned for the final performance of her season-long residency. Conductor David Alan Miller

was so taken by her take on Medusa, heard in the fall, that he suggested it be expanded.

Garrop’s Mythology Symphony is now three-quarters finished and two new sections, on the Sirens and the Fates,

received their premiere. She’s got a flair for vivid orchestration and a taste for grand epic. But the shape of all these pieces is much the same – one long heavy pounding crescendo. Aren’t there some myths that aren’t tragic?

Miller had another good idea in suggesting the Hudson River School of painters as inspiration for a new work by James

Primosch. Coming after the Garrop and Rautavaara, his “Luminism” felt audaciously understated and detailed. Shimmering strings and long gently rocking lines for the horns characterized much of the writing.

John Harbison’s “The Great Gatsby” Suite concluded the program and is being recorded for CD release. It featured an

ensemble in the center rear of the orchestra, with saxophone, banjo and violin, that beautifully evoked early jazz and

whole the flapper era. All those catchy tunes were actually Harbison’s own.

In each of the two movements, the full and churning orchestra eventually wins out over the nimble ensemble just as

crime and deceit subsumes the gay parties in Fitzgerald’s novel.

Colin Currie The Baltimore Sun • April 9, 2010

Finnish conductor Hannu Lintu makes electric debut with Baltimore Symphony BY TIM SMITH If you don't already have plans to hear the Baltimore Symphony Friday night at Meyerhoff of Saturday night at Strathmore, make them. Trust me. This is something you really shouldn't miss. I know what some of you are thinking: "Why would I bother changing my life around for a concert with a conductor I've never heard of leading a program that contains such two overly familiar pieces as Sibelius' "Finlandia" and Beethoven's Seventh? Not to mention a new percussion concerto by a composer with a name no one can pronounce." Well, just get those silly thoughts out of your head right now. You won't be thinking that way after you go. You'll only be wondering how fast the BSO can re-engage Hannu Lintu as a guest conductor (in his native Finland, he leads the Tampere Philharmonic). You might still have trouble pronouncing Einojuhani Rautavaara, the Finnish composer of the percussion concerto on the program -- titled "Incantations" and co-commissioned by the BSO -- but you'll likely find yourself interested in hearing more of his music. All right, enough of the hard sell. Let me just explain why I left Meyerhoff Thursday night on such a high. I'll start, as the program did, with "Finlandia." Although this is the most famous piece by Finland's most famous composer, I'd bet it gets played a lot more often on radio than in concert halls (a whole bunch of similarly appealing gems get treated that way, but that's for another blog post). So part of the fun was just having the chance to soak up all that earthy power of the opening brass chords -- like mighty fjords rising into view -- and the noble, stirring hymn tune that emerges later. What made this performance such a memorable experience was the way Lintu had the music sounding so fresh, so bold and bracing. He drew from the BSO a startling current of energy and expressive involvement from the get-go, a communicative bond that remained sturdy all evening. The 81-year-old Rautavaara is one of the most unabashedly lyrical composers around. His melodic and harmonic idioms are immediately accessible, even when he adds layers of complexity. "Incantations," a work in three action-packed movements, is weakened a little by the big, recurring musical idea stated at the outset with great emphasis by the orchestra; that theme is just this side of the border from movie-score banality. It's catchy, though, no question about that. Luckily, Rautavaara has other ideas churning around in the orchestral portion of the score, while giving the soloist a lot of cool stuff to do. Percussionist Colin Currie jumped into the assignment with his usual, apparently effortless aplomb, darting back and forth between marimba and vibraphone, as well as a battery of drums, cymbals and bells. The sheer virtuosity of his playing was enough to hold the interest, but there was considerable musical value in the way the percussion battery was deployed throughout this taut concerto. Much of the writing is subtle, atmospheric, evocative, rather than assertive (of course, whenever you see a lineup up multiple-size cymbals, you know they're going to get hammered in succession every now and then -- and that's part of this score, too). The dialogue between soloist and orchestra is often

Colin Currie The Baltimore Sun • April 9, 2010 page 2 of 2 engaging, but the former's contributions understandably dominate the argument. Lintu provided Currie with supple support and drew lively work from the ensemble. The BSO has played its fair share of Beethoven Sevenths over the years. The performance with Lintu has to rank among the finest. The conductor's combination of relentless drive, yet remarkable dynamic nuance, reminded me of Carlos Kleiber, and I can't think of any higher praise. I've been known to enjoy more restrained, weightier versions of this symphony (remember Bernstein's final concert?), but I can't resist the chance to be swept up into the kind of frenzy so expertly generated and managed by Lintu. Even in the finale, at max tempo, the conductor ensured subtle varieties of expression so that the sound was never monochromatic. Lintu was no less engaging in the other movements, balancing propulsion with warmth, and his efforts drew some of the most cohesive, colorful and electrifying playing I've heard from the BSO in my 10 years here. That's why I'd really hate for you to miss it.

Colin Currie

21C Media Group • April 9, 2010

Grand Teton Music Festival 2010

Music Director Donald Runnicles Returns to Lead Resident Festival Orchestra in Wyoming’s Majestic Mountains, June 30 – August 14

Highlights of Seven-Week Festival Include Guest Appearances by Sarah Chang, Susan Graham,

Jennifer Higdon, Stephen Hough, and Many More Located in Jackson Hole, at the gateway to the Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks, the Grand Teton Music Festival was voted one of the nation’s top ten music festivals in February 2010*. For its 49th season, Donald Runnicles – also General Music Director of the Deutsche Oper Berlin and Chief Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra – returns for his fifth as the festival’s Music Director, to conduct the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra. Comprising first-rate musicians from orchestras all over the U.S., Canada, and Europe, the orchestra is in residence throughout the festival. Against a backdrop of matchless scenery, Maestro Runnicles leads the GTMF Orchestra in four of the festival’s seven weekend programs, all of which receive both Friday and Saturday night performances in the intimacy and superior acoustics of the recently-renovated Walk Festival Hall. This year’s impressive guest-star roster includes mezzo-soprano Susan Graham; composer Jennifer Higdon; soloists Paolo Bordignon (harpsichord), Sarah Chang (violin), Colin Currie (percussion), Stephen Hough (piano), Michael Rusinek (clarinet), and Akiko Suwanai (violin); and conductors Mei-Ann Chen, Reinhard Goebel, and Mark Wigglesworth. Besides the weekend programs, the seven-week festival (June 30 – Aug 14) also boasts week-night chamber concerts, lighter fare on Wednesdays, and “Music in the Hole”, the 14th annual free outdoor Independence Day concert, which rounds off the opening weekend. Many of the musicians who make up the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra return year after year. “So many of them tell me they spend the other ten months of the year looking forward to returning to the Tetons,” explains Music Director Donald Runnicles. “The Grand Teton Music Festival is Jackson’s best-kept secret.” Not least because of the region’s stunning beauty, the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra attracts musicians from leading orchestras, where many hold principal positions. The ensembles represented include the National, Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, and Vancouver Symphony Orchestras; the Bergen (Norway), Los Angeles, and New York Philharmonics; the Metropolitan, New York City, and San Francisco Opera Orchestras; the Los Angeles and Saint Paul Chamber Orchestras; the Minnesota and Philadelphia Orchestras; the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra; Lyric Opera of Chicago; the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra; and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. In the first of his five weekend programs, Maestro Runnicles presents Beethoven’s incomparable Fifth Symphony, coupled with the Tragic Overture by Brahms and Berg’s Violin Concerto, for which Akiko Suwanai – the youngest person ever to win the International Tchaikovsky Competition – joins the Festival Orchestra (July 2 & 3). The following weekend, Susan Graham, “America’s favorite mezzo” (Gramophone), favors audiences with a taste of her signature repertoire, performing Berlioz’s Nuits d’été under Runnicles in a program of French orchestral classics (July 9 & 10). For his third consecutive weekend program, the Music Director leads the orchestra in Mozart’s Symphonies Nos. 40 and 41 (“Jupiter”) and in the Bruch Violin Concerto, for which internationally-acclaimed virtuoso Sarah Chang returns to the festival (July 16 & 17).

Early music specialist Reinhard Goebel, the first of the season’s guest conductors, presents a selection of works by the Bach family, supported by harpsichord soloist Paolo Bordignon (July 23 & 24). The next weekend features Alan Fletcher’s Clarinet Concerto, which premiered in 2008 with soloist Michael Rusinek, who performs it again for the festival. Also on the program are Dvorák’s Carnival Overture and Rimsky-Korsakov’s beloved Scheherazade, all led by guest conductor Mei-Ann Chen, the first woman to win the Malko International Conductors’ Competition (July 30 & 31). The penultimate weekend of the festival is guest-conducted by Mark Wigglesworth, best known for his work with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and BBC National Orchestra of Wales. He leads the Festival Orchestra in Rachmaninoff’s Third Symphony and Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 1, whose soloist is Wigglesworth’s compatriot Stephen Hough, “a virtuoso who begins where others leave off” (Washington Post) (Aug 6 & 7). For the 49th season’s grand finale, Maestro Runnicles returns to conduct Jennifer Higdon’s Percussion Concerto with soloist Colin Currie, for whom the work was written. It was Currie who not only premiered but recorded the concerto, winning Higdon a 2010 Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition. The composer herself will be in residence all week to oversee the performances, in anticipation of next year’s festival, for which she has been commissioned to create a new work. Also on the final weekend program is another contemporary work – Slonimsky’s Earbox by John Adams – plus two orchestral favorites: Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro for Strings and Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks, with which the festival closes (Aug 13 & 14). The combination of Slonimsky’s Earbox with the music of Strauss has already proved a winning one for Runnicles, prompting this from the UK’s Guardian: “Runnicles’s powerful beat helped give real shape to the manic energy of John Adams’s Slonimsky’s Earbox. … Where others tend to allow Adams’s firecracker to go where it may, Runnicles rode the whirlwind and actually made sense of it. … Runnicles knows his Strauss and understands that his most truthful effects are made with lightness rather than the trowel. There was no false portentousness in his interpretation, and his new orchestra played the one-movement symphony brilliantly… . It is rare to hear a more persuasive account of this problematic but important Strauss score.” On weekday evenings, members of the Festival Orchestra form smaller groups for innovative and traditional Chamber Concerts, and Wednesday-night Spotlight Concerts offer a wide variety of lighter fare, from husband-and-wife piano duo Pam and Keith Phillips, who open the festival on June 30, to the DePue Brothers, Marvin Hamlisch, Sharon Isbin, Project Trio, Tiempo Libre, and returning GTMF favorites The Gypsies. Tickets are available for purchase through the Grand Teton Music Festival Ticket Office by phone at (307) 733-1128 or online at www.gtmf.org <http://www.gtmf.org> . * Today’s Hottest News Grand Teton Music Festival 2010 – principal concerts: Friday, July 2 & Saturday, July 3 at 8pm Walk Festival Hall FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA CONCERTS – BEETHOVEN’S FIFTH Festival Orchestra / Donald Runnicles, conductor Akiko Suwanai, violin Brahms: Tragic Overture Berg: Violin Concerto Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 Sunday, July 4 from 3pm – 7:30pm Alpine Field: FREE, no tickets required 14th ANNUAL MUSIC IN THE HOLE 6pm: Festival Orchestra / Donald Runnicles, conductor Patriotic songs by audience choice

Friday, July 9 & Saturday, July 10 at 8pm Walk Festival Hall FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA CONCERTS – FRENCH MUSIC FOR A SUMMER NIGHT Festival Orchestra / Donald Runnicles, conductor Susan Graham, mezzo-soprano Messiaen: Les offrandes oubliées Debussy: La mer Berlioz: Nuits d’été Ravel: La Valse Friday, July 16 & Saturday, July 17 at 8pm Walk Festival Hall FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA CONCERTS – SARAH CHANG RETURNS Festival Orchestra / Donald Runnicles, conductor Sarah Chang, violin Mozart: Symphony No. 40 Bruch: Violin Concerto Mozart: Symphony No. 41, “Jupiter” Friday, July 23 & Saturday, July 24 at 8pm Walk Festival Hall FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA CONCERTS – BACH & SONS Festival Orchestra / Reinhard Goebel, conductor Paolo Bordignon, harpsichord J.S. Bach: Overture (Suite) No. 3 in D major C.P.E. Bach: Symphony in F major W.F. Bach: Harpsichord Concerto in E minor J.C.F. Bach: Symphony in B-flat major J.C. Bach: Overture and Suite from Amadis de Gaule Friday, July 30 & Saturday, July 31 at 8pm Walk Festival Hall FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA CONCERTS – ONE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS Festival Orchestra / Mei-Ann Chen, conductor Michael Rusinek, clarinet Dvorák: Carnival Overture Fletcher: Clarinet Concerto Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade Friday, August 6 & Saturday, August 7 at 8pm Walk Festival Hall FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA CONCERTS – CLASSIC ROMANCE Festival Orchestra / Mark Wigglesworth, conductor Stephen Hough, piano Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1 Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 3 Friday, August 13 & Saturday, August 14 at 8pm Walk Festival Hall CLOSING ORCHESTRA CONCERTS Festival Orchestra / Donald Runnicles, conductor Colin Currie, percussion Adams: Slonimsky’s Earbox Higdon: Percussion Concerto Elgar: Introduction and Allegro for Strings Strauss: Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks

Colin Currie Syracuse Post-Standard • March 20, 2010

'Fiery Percussion' and high passion mark SSO concert BY JAMES O. WELSCH AND LINDA LOOMIS Gerard Schwarz, visiting conductor from the Seattle Symphony, led the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra Friday in a thrilling concert of contrasts and variety. From the joyous optimism of David Diamond’s “Rounds for String Orchestra,” to the final, fading poignancy of Tchaikovsky’s “Pathetique Symphony,” he elicited impressive music from the artists.

Linda: Jennifer Higdon’s “Percussion Concerto” was the showcase piece of this concert. The interplay among Colin Currie, soloist, the percussion section, and the entire orchestra was stunning.

James: Higdon creates some wonderful moments, not least of which is the middle section of the concerto. Slating the higher and lower instruments in mirror fashion, she creates an ascending chordal line with an imposing but uncluttered lower movement. This created an expansive space for Currie to collaborate with his colleagues. Using all manner of “extended” techniques in percussion playing – bowed vibraphone, crotales (miniature cymbal-like disks) and cymbals – Currie articulated with periodic bursts of mallet, outlining an emergent melodic content.

Linda: The audience responded physically to his extended credenza; I noticed several people leaning forward in their seats as the intensity of this improvisation increased. Currie’s success in structuring something new and in the moment was affirmed by a standing ovation and sustained applause that extended for a full 2 minutes at the conclusion of the concerto.

James: Higdon designed a collaborative relationship between the soloist and orchestra. I give a tremendous tip of the hat to the percussionists for helping to create some of these wonderful effects. The musicians honored the composer’s intent by performing interesting and differing sound-worlds, always in balanced relationship. We witnessed what was certainly a unique musical amalgam.

Linda: After intermission, we heard the iconic symphony for over-the-top emotion: Tchaikovsky’s No. 6 in B Minor. It is always a heartrending experience to hear it done well, as it was tonight.

James: At the “Allegro non troppo” in the first movement, the violas played superbly, and there was a wonderful sense of balance in the woodwind section. We can’t overlook the brass either, as they were heard at all of the important brass-heavy moments throughout.

Linda: Tchaikovsky’s innovative approach to the various movements can seem enigmatic to an audience. The third movement pulls out all the stops dynamically and appears to be the finale – actually it called forth applause. But the final movement, Adagio lamentoso, pulls out all the emotional stops, moving in dark tones and funereal pace to an exquisitely expressive ending.

Colin Currie

The Times February 18, 2010

Drumming at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London SE1 BY NEIL FISHER

Live performances of Steve Reich’s 1971 Drumming — a touchstone for percussionists and Reich devotees alike —

remain rare. Indeed, that was the main reason why Colin Currie set up his virtuoso band of musicians, the Colin

Currie Group, itself born to the hypnotic strains of Drumming back in 2006 at the Proms and accompanied then, as at

the Queen Elizabeth Hall, by two specialist singers from Synergy Vocals.

But if that performance had the relentless power of an arena spectacle, this one felt decidedly more intimate, taking

the listener deeper into Reich’s sound world. And it’s not a world without the charm and nuance of the chamber

music that more usually occupies the QEH, at least not when performed with this degree of finesse and moment-by-

moment satisfaction from its participants.

Of course, as a listener you cannot hop from moment to moment in Drumming. The work, which can take anything

between 55 and 75 minutes (this one chose a benign but precise 70) is like one long piece of elastic, stretching and

unstretching as different tensions are applied. Colour builds up through the addition or subtraction of volume, the

picking up or slowing down of pace. When the miracle happens of a change of instrument — bongo drum to marimba,

marimba to glockenspiel — the short handovers force your ear to gauge the precise and thrilling change in timbre.

When the three remaining musicians — two vocalists and a piccolo — fold in, their purpose is not to add layers but to

pick them out from the ether. Soon you aren’t sure whether they’re even sounding or not. Welcome to Minimalism.

But it’s the implicit tension in Drumming, between the exactitude of the writing and its exhilarating release, that makes

it work. Currie’s group recognised this, tweaking that elastic with the joy of musicianship rather than

mechanical precision. Different personalities rose to the challenge — Richard Benjafield all controlling serenity, Joby

Burgess’s body pulsing and face beaming as he struck with the mallets. Sure, you space out, trip out, even switch off,

when you listen to Drumming. But here at least there was always plenty to plug you right back in. No wonder the

composer himself, taking his bow at the end, looked so pleased.

Colin Currie

Financial Times February 5, 2010

page 2 of 2

Colin Currie

Financial Times February 5, 2010

Percussionists move into the limelight BY LAURA BATTLE

Classical percussionist Colin Currie

You could call it a big bang theory. For centuries, percussionists laboured at the back of ensembles, adding rhythmical

texture or climactic flourish to instrumental works but, more often than not, silently counting beats. As one

disenchanted musician once put it, 90 per cent of the time he was bored to death and the other 10 per cent of the time he

was scared to death.

During the mid-20th century, however, attitudes began to change and there followed the gradual emancipation of

classical percussionists who sought a more conspicuous role. Over the past 30 years there has been an explosion of

interest in percussion instruments: they have found prominence in new compositions and as soloists in their own right.

There is now a growing belief that percussion, and percussionists, will come to define the musical landscape of

the future.

There were many catalysts for this change – influential research into African music, for example – but the first

percussion composition to grab public attention was Steve Reich‟s “Drumming” from 1970-1971. This piece came to

epitomise early minimalist cool, but Reich had been inspired to write it after a period of study at the University of

Ghana with the drumming master Gideon Alorwoyie. The score consists of a relay of phased rhythms: tuned bongos

give way to marimbas and female voices, which themselves blend seamlessly into glockenspiels, whistling and

piccolos before all unite for a reverberating chorus. Performances of the work have been rare, which makes this

month‟s concert at the Royal Festival Hall by Scottish percussionist Colin Currie and his group rather special – so

special, in fact, that the composer himself will bear witness.

Colin Currie

Financial Times February 5, 2010

page 2 of 2

“Percussionists all have different opinions about things but when it comes to Steve Reich we‟re all on the same

page,” Currie says. “He‟s written so well for our instrument, he knows the colours and how to build amazing

ensembles. „Drumming‟ is an absolute masterpiece.”

Performances of the piece last, on average, around an hour, depending on repeats, and within this time the piece

develops a crescendo of giddy optimism and an almost dream-like transcendence. “Often percussion is criticised for

having surface effects without profundity but „Drumming‟ can really choke you up, it‟s very powerful.” In the early

1970s, Reich and his ensemble presented “Drumming” in a somewhat ritualistic fashion – reports tell of kaftans and

long beards – but Currie will forego any attempt at extraneous effect: “We wouldn‟t be seen dead playing that piece in

kaftans!” he assures me.

In addition to “Drumming”, Currie will give another concert at the Southbank, titled “The Big Bash”, as part of

the Imagine series for children. “None of the repertoire is hammy,” Currie says. “I‟m going to play two Reich pieces,

„Clapping‟ and „Nagoya Marimbas‟, but I‟ll have more audience participation and go into some of the rhythms.”

Currie explains how, as a child, he was charmed by the charisma and almost primitive physicality of percussionists. “A

drummer is someone who coordinates a number of things,” he says. “The left hand is doing something, the right

hand is doing something else, the feet are involved – and there‟s something magical about that, like being a

conjuror. The callisthenics of percussion is still something that interests me.” He also enthuses about the open-

mindedness of children, who are often far more receptive than adults when faced with a challenging piece of

music.

The percussion repertoire is, almost by definition, modern or contemporary. When the now renowned percussionist

Evelyn Glennie began her career in the 1980s, she was one of the first professional soloists and the range of music was

relatively limited. “[Glennie] premiered some of the first percussion concertos that achieved a high level of musical

integrity and I think she really opened up the path for solo percussion,” Currie says.

Since then, however, leading composers including Philip Glass, Thea Musgrave, James MacMillan, Unsuk Chin and

Mark Anthony Turnage have written percussion concertos, and percussion pieces are now frequently performed by the

world‟s top orchestras. Currie has had 12 concertos written especially for him and 10 of them have gone on to be

played, sometimes dozens of times, after the initial premiere.

The knock-on effects of this phenomenon have now percolated through academic institutions: there has been a massive

increase in young solo percussionists and there are a growing number of specialist ensembles round the world. Currie,

who holds visiting professorships at the Royal Academy of Music and at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague,

works closely with young musicians.

“It‟s phenomenal. The standard has gone through the roof. You get people who have been frantically practising

their marimbas since an early age but I‟d say there‟s now a plateau,” he says. “Percussionists are always

worried about their technique and being the best at something and that‟s such a mistake. What‟s really needed

is fresh ideas – collaborative thinkers and composers that will help us expand musically rather than technically.”

One key to the success of percussionists seems to be their capacity to involve a wide audience. As Currie points out,

“What do all cultures have in common? Drums.” Another is their innate versatility. Currie has worked with all

manner of musicians, including the Monteverdi Choir, the Labèque sisters, jazz trumpeter Kenny Wheeler and the

beatboxer Shlomo (see above), and he has had to master a great range of individual instruments. As the conventional

boundaries between musical genres dissolve, and cultural traditions become more porous, percussion seems to

offer the ultimate medium for musical exchange. “I‟m much more involved with the classical side of things,”

Currie says, “but you will see percussionists performing in all sorts of different venues, and they could be the

ones to watch out for.”

Colin Currie

Telegraph.co.uk October 26, 2009

Rautavaara premiere at Festival Hall, review BY IVAN HEWETT

Rautavaara's percussion concerto, performed by Colin Currie and the LPO at the Festival Hall, was beguilingly mysterious. Rating: * * *

Lurking deep in the British psyche must be an ancestral memory of snow-covered Northern forests and ancient Nordic

myth. How else to explain the massive appeal of Jean Sibelius, the Finnish composer who in the 1930s and 1940s was

so popular he was practically an honorary Brit? Add to those factors a somewhat New Age-ish evocation of

shamanistic rituals round a campfire, and you go some way to explaining the current popularity of the elderly Finnish

composer Einojuhani Rautavaara.

Rautavaara's new percussion concerto, Incantations, premiered by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, launched off

with a sadly modal melody which might have sounded embarrassingly conventional. But the weirdly dissonant

shadowings in the woodwind, the misty string backdrop and the strange percussion glissandi made it rivetingly strange.

The other very striking moment was the solo cadenza. This was composed by the soloist Colin Currie, who showed a

real flair for translating Rautavaara's cold expressive climate into the inherently tropical sound-world of percussion.

The long meditative passages for vibraphone and the more agitated 'shamanistic' dances that interrupted them were

more conventional. But Currie played them with such artistry that they seemed almost inspired. Though each individual

idea was not so strong, the impression of the whole certainly was – which was the most mysterious aspect of a very

mysterious piece.

After the interval came that towering pinnacle of late-romantic orchestral music, Bruckner's Eighth Symphony. In

comparison with Rautavaara's concerto it was reassuringly massive and solid, but in many ways it's also an elusive

piece. The first movement seems to discover its key-centre rather than asserting it, and the last movement is a complex

journey, full of sudden reversals where a massive sound drops away to leave a lonely flute perched over a tense

pianissimo drumroll.

The conductor was Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who pulled off the impressive feat of conducting this immense piece from

memory. Perhaps it was the freedom this gave him to think in the long-term that made his shaping of Bruckner's long

paragraphs so convincing. The piece makes huge demands on the orchestra's stamina, especially the brass, but the LPO

rose to the challenge magnificently. The most telling moment was the very last, when Nézet-Séguin shaded off the final

chord rather than going for sheer volume. It was a canny substitute for the cathedral-like final echo the piece needs, and

created a sense of something immense fading away on the air.

Colin Currie

San Francisco Chronicle February 1, 2008

Review: Hardenberger, Currie in lively duet BY JOSHUA KOSMAN

In music, no less than in life, you have to love the odd couples. Tuesday's recital by trumpeter Hakan Hardenberger and

percussionist Colin Currie was a little exercise in offbeat brilliance.

Music for this particular combination of instruments is sparse, so about half of the recital, presented in Herbst Theatre

by San Francisco Performances, consisted of one performer or the other taking the stage alone. And if the results

seemed a little diffuse - a trumpet melody here, a drum blowout there - the cumulative effect was often electrifying.

Hardenberger, a Swedish virtuoso, began his career with recordings of the standard classical repertoire, but most of his

activity has been in contemporary music. He brings to it a wide range of musical resources - from gently burnished

pianissimos to piercing pyrotechnics - as well as an exploratory restlessness that is well matched by the vibrant energy

of Currie, a British musician with a long-standing focus on new music.

The two joined forces for a variety of undertakings, from "Lucid Intervals," a three-movement serenade commissioned

from British composer Dave Maric, to a poignant encore of Charlie Parker's "Donna Lee," arranged for flugelhorn and

vibraphone by the Swedish composer Rolf Martinsson.

Perhaps the most compelling collaboration came right at the start, with Daniel Börtz's "Dialogo 4." In this sprawling,

13-minute discussion, the trumpet applies a series of mutes that produce a variety of sonorities, and in each case the

percussionist finds the instruments in his arsenal that match that sound.

The result is a like a long, winding late-night chat, in which the two participants are always clearly addressing the same

topic - sometimes with an easy give-and-take, sometimes with a little more tension or dissent. Then the subject shifts,

and the pair moves on together. As with any such discussion, the course meanders a little, but each passing moment is

compelling.

The program concluded with André Jolivet's seven-movement "Heptade" from 1971, the oldest piece on the program.

With its blend of experimental music and jazz - Currie held forth from behind an extensive trap set - the music darts

hither and yon, revisiting a few basic melodic ideas in various guises. The writing is not without its arid stretches, but

the performers played it with passionate commitment.

They fared better alone, though. Hardenberger delivered a luminous account of Toru Takemitsu's "Paths," which

derives a full measure of quiet drama from the alternation of phrases with and without the mute. And Currie's

performance of Louis Andriessen's "Woodpecker," a blistering five-minute toccata for xylophone and temple blocks,

was a knockout.

But the evening's high point was "Fire Over Water," a fierce, intricate and breathtaking percussion solo by the Danish

master Per Nørgård from a set of pieces called "I Ching." Holding forth at top speed on a carefully calibrated array of

nearly a dozen drums, Currie created a web of cross-rhythms that kept changing without becoming chaotic.

There's an odd misstep at the end - the piece concludes with a single stroke of the tam-tam that is as corny as a chorus

of "Shave and a haircut, two bits" - but until then the music is both riveting and gorgeous.

February 11, 2008

Keeping a Faun, a Scamp and a Firebird in Line

By JAMES R. OESTREICH

Marin Alsop’s motley program with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall

on Saturday evening told several colorful tales, evoking the ill-fated scamp of Strauss’s

“Till Eulenspiegel” and the exotic protagonists of Debussy’s “Prelude to the Afternoon of

a Faun” and Stravinsky’s “Firebird” Suite. But it only hinted at the tale that some

listeners were most curious about: how Ms. Alsop’s relationship with the orchestra is

faring.

When the orchestra announced Ms. Alsop’s appointment in 2005 — positioning her to

become the first female music director of a major American orchestra, as many have

called her to the chagrin of the Buffalo Philharmonic, led by JoAnn Falletta — some

players rose loudly in protest. Those hostilities seem to have passed, and most reports

about Ms. Alsop’s first season on the job have been bright.

Certainly the playing here, in Ms. Alsop’s first New York appearance as music director,

was excellent, testifying both to the fine condition in which Ms. Alsop’s immediate

predecessor, Yuri Temirkanov, left the orchestra and to Ms. Alsop’s quick ability to

capitalize on it. And Ms. Alsop — nattily dressed in a black pantsuit, with red trim at the

cuffs and under the back flap, and conducting without a score — showed complete

control, infectious enthusiasm and canny pacing.

But these relatively brief showpieces are staples of the veteran guest conductor. All too

familiar to players, they can be polished to a fine sheen in short order by someone as

experienced and efficient as Ms. Alsop. What remains to be seen is how the chemistry

will hold up in less familiar terrain demanding sustained intensity and concentration,

the long line that was a Temirkanov trademark.

Where Ms. Alsop will have it all over Mr. Temirkanov, in any case, is in her passions for

American and contemporary music. Those were represented here by the New York

premiere of Steven Mackey’s “Time Release,” a 2005 concerto for percussion — mostly

marimba — and orchestra.

The title and many of the musical gestures derive from characteristics of the tone

production of a marimba: in Mr. Mackey’s words, “the note will bloom, decay and die

relatively quickly in a predetermined time line.” He mirrors the instrument’s “poing,” as

he calls it, with short-long patterns in the orchestral instruments.

That poing was more pervasive in the slow movement, Strolling Melody-

Smooth/Bumpy, than in the cascading marimba figures of the first two movements. The

finale, called Alleluia (perhaps with a nod to Rachmaninoff’s “Symphonic Dances”),

leaves the disjunct tunes and occasional atonalisms of the earlier movements behind in

a prairie-style hymn.

The work was written for the Scottish percussionist Colin Currie, who

performed it nimbly and brilliantly here. Ms. Alsop (now using a score) and the

orchestra gave full and effective voice to the wide-ranging instrumentation.

The sizable audience was warmly responsive to that work and, all evening, to Ms. Alsop,

who rewarded it with an encore: Hindemith’s “Ragtime,” a swirling riff on the C minor

Fugue from Book 1 of Bach’s “Well-Tempered Clavier.”

Though much of the program, including Mr. Mackey’s piece, made for easy listening, the

audience and the hall did not. In one section of orchestra seats, a high-pitched beeping,

possibly from a hearing aid, intruded in quiet passages throughout the Strauss and the

Mackey. And after intermission a hum that sounded like a loudspeaker covered the

opening of both the Debussy and the Stravinsky.

Friday, February 1, 2008

Review: Hardenberger, Currie in lively duet Joshua Kosman, Chronicle Music Critic

In music, no less than in life, you have to love the odd couples. Tuesday's recital by

trumpeter Hakan Hardenberger and percussionist Colin Currie was a little exercise in

offbeat brilliance.

Music for this particular combination of instruments is sparse, so about half of the recital,

presented in Herbst Theatre by San Francisco Performances, consisted of one performer or

the other taking the stage alone. And if the results seemed a little diffuse - a trumpet melody

here, a drum blowout there - the cumulative effect was often electrifying.

Hardenberger, a Swedish virtuoso, began his career with recordings of the standard classical

repertoire, but most of his activity has been in contemporary music. He brings to it a wide

range of musical resources - from gently burnished pianissimos to piercing pyrotechnics - as

well as an exploratory restlessness that is well matched by the vibrant energy of Currie, a

British musician with a long-standing focus on new music.

The two joined forces for a variety of undertakings, from "Lucid Intervals," a three-

movement serenade commissioned from British composer Dave Maric, to a poignant encore

of Charlie Parker's "Donna Lee," arranged for flugelhorn and vibraphone by the Swedish

composer Rolf Martinsson.

Perhaps the most compelling collaboration came right at the start, with Daniel Börtz's

"Dialogo 4." In this sprawling, 13-minute discussion, the trumpet applies a series of mutes

that produce a variety of sonorities, and in each case the percussionist finds the instruments

in his arsenal that match that sound.

The result is a like a long, winding late-night chat, in which the two participants are always

clearly addressing the same topic - sometimes with an easy give-and-take, sometimes with a

little more tension or dissent. Then the subject shifts, and the pair moves on together. As

with any such discussion, the course meanders a little, but each passing moment is

compelling.

The program concluded with André Jolivet's seven-movement "Heptade" from 1971, the

oldest piece on the program. With its blend of experimental music and jazz - Currie held

forth from behind an extensive trap set - the music darts hither and yon, revisiting a few

basic melodic ideas in various guises. The writing is not without its arid stretches, but the

performers played it with passionate commitment.

They fared better alone, though. Hardenberger delivered a luminous account of Toru

Takemitsu's "Paths," which derives a full measure of quiet drama from the alternation of

phrases with and without the mute. And Currie's performance of Louis Andriessen's

"Woodpecker," a blistering five-minute toccata for xylophone and temple blocks, was a

knockout.

But the evening's high point was "Fire Over Water," a fierce, intricate and breathtaking

percussion solo by the Danish master Per Nørgård from a set of pieces called "I Ching."

Holding forth at top speed on a carefully calibrated array of nearly a dozen drums, Currie

created a web of cross-rhythms that kept changing without becoming chaotic.

There's an odd misstep at the end - the piece concludes with a single stroke of the tam-tam

that is as corny as a chorus of "Shave and a haircut, two bits" - but until then the music is

both riveting and gorgeous.

December 19, 2007

LPO/Alsop Geoff Brown at the Festival Hall

Of all unlikely bedfellows for Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme by

Thomas Tallis must be near the top of the list. Yet in Marin Alsop’s Saturday concert with the London

Philharmonic – the Festival Hall’s last meaty classical feast before the Christmas decorations take over –

we needed this calm before the storm. The LPO strings, honed and polished, hovered in gentle rapture

over the Fantasia’s modal musings. From that point on, every part of the orchestra let loose with jiggling

bedlam.

Stravinsky wasn’t single-handedly responsible. Stomping and thrilling sounds also shot out from the

American composer Jennifer Higdon. Her Percussion Concerto, from 2005, might not stretch American

music far beyond the stereotyped moods of syncopated urban frenzy and the “open sky” harmonies of

Copland in repose. But it easily earned its keep as a brilliantly crafted, brilliantly theatrical, display

piece for its splendid dedicatee, the British percussion soloist Colin Currie. During Currie’s

cadenza, nearby violinists daintily covered an ear. Yet nowhere in this 24-minute piece did

rhythmic exuberance ever become sheer noise. Progressing from throbbing marimba through

clattering woodblocks to a drum kit from hell, Currie always found beauty in precision. Elegance,

too.

And, for all its high-decibel effusions, Higdon layered her piece very delicately, with due regard for

exploiting orchestral space. Witness the soloist’s dialogues with the orchestra’s five percussionists – a

deliciously subtle dramatic feature. All the composer lacked was a big rabbit to pull out of the hat for the

finale. It never arrived. But, given her imaginative skill, Currie’s electricity and Alsop’s firm grip, more of

the same proved good enough.

Swivelling her hips every other second, Alsop kept up the podium dance for Stravinsky’s pagan feast.

She was too canny a conductor to bludgeon us straight away. This was a Rite that took time to show its

teeth. But when they were bared, in the awesome crescendo concluding Part I, in the woodwind shrieks,

the scything brass or the blood stomp of the Sacrificial Dance, those teeth were sharp and wicked.

October 23, 2005

Culture: Ay marimba! Percussionist gets serious Edinburgh-born Colin Currie wants us all to give his chosen instrument a chance, writes Andrew Burnet It’s hard to picture Mozart snapping his fingers after a feverish hunt for inspiration and crying: “I’ve got it

— a marimba concerto!” Popular as it is with Latin dance bands, the marimba has been overlooked in the

orchestral arena.

But all that is starting to change, and the Edinburgh-born percussionist Colin Currie is leading the way. At

29, Currie is in demand in concert halls all over Europe and America. He trained in the classical

repertoire, but his first love is new music, and he works with a wide range of composers. In the course of

2005, he will have been featured soloist in three world premieres and one European premiere. But while

he’s no stranger to a bongo — and could doubtless bash out a rhythm on any object you care to name —

the marimba remains his instrument of choice.

“It’s very versatile because it has a big register,” he explains. “It has five octaves, so you’ve got bass,

middle and some high treble. And you can play chords and also sustain by playing it rolled.”

The instrument is, in a way, the subject of Time Release, Currie’s new collaboration with the American

composer Steven Mackey.

Following its world premiere in the Hague last month, it receives its UK premiere next week in Glasgow

and Edinburgh, where Currie will perform it with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra (SCO).

For the uninitiated, the marimba is a type of xylophone, thought to have been introduced to Latin America

by African slaves. Its keys are fitted with tubular resonators or gourds — augmented, in some cases, by a

buzzing membrane — and it produces a distinctively rounded, melodic tone.

Currie, who worked closely with Mackey to develop Time Release, is delighted with the result. “It’s ended

up being largely a marimba concerto,” he says. “Steve is very au fait with the instrument, and we had this

discussion as to whether we wanted the piece to be wacky and out-there; or whether we wanted

something which was a dead-straight, very serious piece of music, pushing the envelope for what a

marimba could achieve in a concerto — and that was by far my preference.”

Following the Scottish performances, Currie will perform Time Release in France and Sweden with the

Ensemble Orchestral de Paris and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, which jointly commissioned it with

the SCO and the Hague’s Residentie Orchestra. Between times, he’ll be back home in London, preparing

for his next world premiere, Percussion Concerto by the American composer Jennifer Higdon, which he’ll

perform next month in Philadelphia, then New York, Washington, Dallas and Indianapolis.

It’s a hectic travelling schedule, but it suits Currie well. “I’ve got a great life in London, but the life that I’ve

become accustomed to is the business of going and playing in new places and that’s just such a

wonderful, almost romantic way to go about your work,” he says. “It’s captivating and intoxicating.”

Currie has certainly come a long way since being given his first drum set at the age of four. After

spending his pubescent years hooked on the pop charts, he discovered classical music in his mid-teens,

joined the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland and began formal training. One early influence, not

surprisingly, was his compatriot Evelyn Glennie.

“Undoubtedly I have a great debt to her,” he says. “She was most certainly the first solo player that I was

aware of as a youngster and particularly at that time she was very inspiring for me.”

At 15, Currie won the Shell/London Symphony Orchestra prize; and at 18 he became the first

percussionist to reach the BBC Young Musician of the Year finals. Audaciously, he used the televised

final at the Barbican to premiere a new piece, Concerto for Percussion by Errollyn Wallen. The cellist

Natalie Clein emerged the winner, but Currie received a special commendation.

Currie began his recording career while still at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and soon after

graduating he was working with respected orchestras and conductors. But he had worked out that

Glennie was not only playing new work, but also commissioning some of it, and decided this was the way

forward.

“I received a lot of support in Scotland and some of my initial commissioning opportunities did arise

there,” he says. “But I suppose the idea or the impetus for these projects did come from me. I did want to

push the repertoire and get new pieces. I felt there was a lack of strictly serious music in the percussion

repertoire.

“There were a lot of circus pieces and flashy pieces and percussion jamboree-type music. But I wanted

then, and I still want, deadly serious pieces of music that can be lots of different things as well as being

fun, exciting and interesting. I want percussion to be approached as you would any other instrument. I

don’t see why it should be different.”

Among the leading composers who have written for Currie are James MacMillan, Michael Torke and

Toshi Ichiyanagi. Another important collaborator has been the English minimalist Steve Martland, who

introduced him to the young composers Joe Duddell and Dave Maric, with whom he works regularly.

Last year, he initiated his collaboration with Mackey, who began his career as a rock guitarist. Currie had

been invited to work with the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, and brought Mackey on board as composer.

The result, unveiled in February 2004, was Django, a tribute to the gypsy guitar maestro Django

Reinhardt, which also draws inspiration from tango.

“It was a really cool piece,” says Currie. “It was excellent and that whetted my appetite massively.” When

the time came to commission Time Release, Mackey was his man.

In fact, almost the only person who isn’t composing music for Colin Currie these days is Colin Currie.

“No,” he says wrily, “it’s not happening right now. I have a mini-project on the go writing percussion music

for commercial use, but that’s just for fun. It’s not art music.”

That may leave room for aspiration, but for now Currie seems satisfied with the way things are. “My wish

is to sustain this kind of work,” he reflects. “Projects like the Mackey one are highly rewarding and I think

they are genuinely achieving something. I think we’re actually getting some pieces that stand up well in

any category.

“I just want to play great music, and the fact that it’s percussion . . . That’s just what I do, so that’s where

we’re at.”

Colin Currie

The Sunday Times October 23, 2005

Culture: Ay marimba! Percussionist gets serious BY ANDREW NURNET

Edinburgh-born Colin Currie wants us all to give his chosen instrument a chance

It’s hard to picture Mozart snapping his fingers after a feverish hunt for inspiration and crying: “I’ve got it — a

marimba concerto!” Popular as it is with Latin dance bands, the marimba has been overlooked in the orchestral arena.

But all that is starting to change, and the Edinburgh-born percussionist Colin Currie is leading the way. At 29, Currie is

in demand in concert halls all over Europe and America. He trained in the classical repertoire, but his first love is new

music, and he works with a wide range of composers. In the course of 2005, he will have been featured soloist in three

world premieres and one European premiere. But while he’s no stranger to a bongo — and could doubtless bash out a

rhythm on any object you care to name — the marimba remains his instrument of choice.

“It’s very versatile because it has a big register,” he explains. “It has five octaves, so you’ve got bass, middle and some

high treble. And you can play chords and also sustain by playing it rolled.”

The instrument is, in a way, the subject of Time Release, Currie’s new collaboration with the American composer

Steven Mackey.

Following its world premiere in the Hague last month, it receives its UK premiere next week in Glasgow and

Edinburgh, where Currie will perform it with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra (SCO).

For the uninitiated, the marimba is a type of xylophone, thought to have been introduced to Latin America by African

slaves. Its keys are fitted with tubular resonators or gourds — augmented, in some cases, by a buzzing membrane —

and it produces a distinctively rounded, melodic tone.

Currie, who worked closely with Mackey to develop Time Release, is delighted with the result. “It’s ended up being

largely a marimba concerto,” he says. “Steve is very au fait with the instrument, and we had this discussion as to

whether we wanted the piece to be wacky and out-there; or whether we wanted something which was a dead-straight,

very serious piece of music, pushing the envelope for what a marimba could achieve in a concerto — and that was by

far my preference.”

Following the Scottish performances, Currie will perform Time Release in France and Sweden with the Ensemble

Orchestral de Paris and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, which jointly commissioned it with the SCO and the Hague’s

Residentie Orchestra. Between times, he’ll be back home in London, preparing for his next world premiere, Percussion

Concerto by the American composer Jennifer Higdon, which he’ll perform next month in Philadelphia, then New York,

Washington, Dallas and Indianapolis.

Colin Currie

The Sunday Times October 23, 2005

page 2 of 2

It’s a hectic travelling schedule, but it suits Currie well. “I’ve got a great life in London, but the life that I’ve become

accustomed to is the business of going and playing in new places and that’s just such a wonderful, almost romantic way

to go about your work,” he says. “It’s captivating and intoxicating.”

Currie has certainly come a long way since being given his first drum set at the age of four. After spending his

pubescent years hooked on the pop charts, he discovered classical music in his mid-teens, joined the National Youth

Orchestra of Scotland and began formal training. One early influence, not surprisingly, was his compatriot Evelyn

Glennie.

“Undoubtedly I have a great debt to her,” he says. “She was most certainly the first solo player that I was aware of as a

youngster and particularly at that time she was very inspiring for me.”

At 15, Currie won the Shell/London Symphony Orchestra prize; and at 18 he became the first percussionist to reach the

BBC Young Musician of the Year finals. Audaciously, he used the televised final at the Barbican to premiere a new

piece, Concerto for Percussion by Errollyn Wallen. The cellist Natalie Clein emerged the winner, but Currie received a

special commendation.

Currie began his recording career while still at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and soon after graduating he

was working with respected orchestras and conductors. But he had worked out that Glennie was not only playing new

work, but also commissioning some of it, and decided this was the way forward.

“I received a lot of support in Scotland and some of my initial commissioning opportunities did arise there,” he says.

“But I suppose the idea or the impetus for these projects did come from me. I did want to push the repertoire and get

new pieces. I felt there was a lack of strictly serious music in the percussion repertoire.

“There were a lot of circus pieces and flashy pieces and percussion jamboree-type music. But I wanted then, and I still

want, deadly serious pieces of music that can be lots of different things as well as being fun, exciting and interesting. I

want percussion to be approached as you would any other instrument. I don’t see why it should be different.”

Among the leading composers who have written for Currie are James MacMillan, Michael Torke and Toshi Ichiyanagi.

Another important collaborator has been the English minimalist Steve Martland, who introduced him to the young

composers Joe Duddell and Dave Maric, with whom he works regularly.

Last year, he initiated his collaboration with Mackey, who began his career as a rock guitarist. Currie had been invited

to work with the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, and brought Mackey on board as composer. The result, unveiled in

February 2004, was Django, a tribute to the gypsy guitar maestro Django Reinhardt, which also draws inspiration from

tango.

“It was a really cool piece,” says Currie. “It was excellent and that whetted my appetite massively.” When the time

came to commission Time Release, Mackey was his man.

In fact, almost the only person who isn’t composing music for Colin Currie these days is Colin Currie. “No,” he says

wrily, “it’s not happening right now. I have a mini-project on the go writing percussion music for commercial use, but

that’s just for fun. It’s not art music.”

That may leave room for aspiration, but for now Currie seems satisfied with the way things are. “My wish is to sustain

this kind of work,” he reflects. “Projects like the Mackey one are highly rewarding and I think they are genuinely

achieving something. I think we’re actually getting some pieces that stand up well in any category.

“I just want to play great music, and the fact that it’s percussion . . . That’s just what I do, so that’s where we’re at.”