Percussionist Colin Currie has established a unique reputation for his charismatic and virtuosic performances of works by today’s leading composers, and has appeared with many of the world’s most important orchestras – the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Philadelphia Orchestra, among others. Regularly commissioning and recording new works, he has made an inspirational and innovative contribution to the percussion repertoire.  

At the age of fifteen Colin Currie won the Shell/LSO prize, and subsequently was the first percussion finalist in the BBC Young Musician competition. He was awarded the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Young Artist Award in 2002 for his outstanding role in contemporary music-making and was a Borletti-Buitoni Trust award winner in 2005. Currie was selected as a BBC New Generation Artist from 2003-2005, and as part of the scheme performed a variety of concerto and recital engagements with the BBC orchestras and in major festivals and concert halls. He is currently Visiting Professor of Solo Percussion at the Royal Academy of Music in London and at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague.  

Currie is deeply committed to the development of new repertoire for percussion in its widest form, including orchestral, solo and chamber music. Most recently he has premiered concerti by Jennifer Higdon, Simon Holt and Kurt Schwertsik, as well as music by Alexander Goehr, Steve Martland, Steven Mackey, Joe Duddell and Dave Maric, a composer he collaborates with on a regular basis.

During the 2009/10 season, Currie performs the world premiere of Einojuhani Rautavaara’s percussion concerto Incantations with the London Philharmonic and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, followed by performances with co-commissioners the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Tampere Philharmonic and Baltimore Symphony. Also in the US, he performs at Carnegie Hall with the St. Louis Symphony and David Robertson in two concerti - Tan Dun’s Water Percussion Concerto and Bright Sheng’s Colors of Crimson - as part of Carnegie’s Ancient Paths, Modern Voices festival, which pays tribute to the vibrant culture and influence of China, as well as giving the North American premiere of Simon Holt’s a table of noises with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Other performances include the opening concert of the 2009 Berlin Festival and at the BBC Proms in Xenakis’s Aïs, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and David Robertson, as well as concerts with the BBC Philharmonic, and the Albany, Syracuse, and Utah Symphony Orchestras.

Currie performs extensively as recitalist and chamber musician, collaborating in particular with Hakan Hardenberger in a duo recital for trumpet and percussion, a piano-percussion duo with Nicolas Hodges, and with the Pavel Haas Quartet. Currie has also collaborated with artists such as Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Viktoria Mullova, the Labèque sisters, and jazz musicians Peter Erskine, Kenny Wheeler and John Taylor. Recital appearances over recent seasons have included concerts at the Settembre Musica Festival with Nicolas Hodges, and with Hakan Hardenberger at the Verbier Festival, Bridgewater Hall, Hamburg Musikhalle, LSO St Luke’s and in San Francisco. Highlights this season include a solo recital and chamber music concert with the Pavel Haas Quartet at the Beethovenfest Bonn, and Currie leading a percussion ensemble event centred on Steve Reich’s iconic work Drumming as part of the International Chamber Music Season at the Southbank Centre.

Colin Currie’s latest CD release features Jennifer Higdon’s Percussion Concerto conducted by Marin Alsop with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and this season he collaborates with the Pavel Haas Quartet in a studio recording of Alexander Goehr’s since brass…nor stone for the BBC New Generation Artists scheme. Currie’s recital disc Borrowed Time is available on the Onyx label, featuring music by British composer Dave Maric including solo percussion music and duos with trumpet and organ, and his first solo album, Striking a Balance, was released on EMI. He has also recorded concerti by James MacMillan and Michael Torke for Naxos.

 Audio and Video Credits:
Video produced by Borletti-Buitoni Trust
www.bbtrust.com

Jennifer Higdon's Percussion Concerto courtesy of the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Marin Alsop.  LPO-0035

Dave Maric, Lucid Intervals from the ONYX Classics disc Borrowed Time
Supported by the Borletti-Buitoni Trust
A co-production with KML Recordings Ltd 

James MacMillian’s Veni Veni Emmanuel licensed courtesy of Naxos Rights International Ltd.
Reproduced by kind permission of Boosey & Hawkes Music Publisher Ltd. 

Last updated October 2009. Contact Opus 3 Artists for the most up-to-date version.