Colin Currie - About

It is thrilling for me to have been awarded a BBT Award, for which I am so very grateful. The bursary will be used to pursue a major new commission for a percussion concerto, to be premiered in the near future. Such awards are so very valuable and rare at this ‘post-launch’ stage of one’s career, and this is where BBT is so special and incisive.

British percussionist, Colin Currie is a dynamic and adventurous solo and chamber artist who champions new music at the highest level. The soloist of choice for many of today’s foremost composers and conductors, he performs with leading orchestras throughout the world. With the personal endorsement of composer Steve Reich, he founded the virtuosic Colin Currie Group in 2006 to perform Reich’s music exclusively. He has since gone on to form the Colin Currie Quartet and Colin Currie Records and also conducts many leading orchestras and ensembles internationally.

Another of Colin’s enduring creative partnerships is with composer Dave Maric: as well as performing and recording with the Colin Currie Group, Maric has composed many works for Colin, including BBT-commissioned Lucid Intervals for percussion and trumpet (Håkan Hardenberger) which features on his all-Maric album Borrowed Time, recorded with funds from his BBT Award and also the subject of a BBT Artist profile film, In the Court of King Currie. The Trust also supported another commission for Colin and Hardenberger from Lukas Ligeti. The most substantial of Colin’s BBT projects was the co-commissioning of a table of noises, a complex and richly textured concerto composed by Simon Holt, premiered by City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra with Martyn Brabbins and subsequently recorded on the NMC label.

Colin’s first personal website and new publicity photographs complete the portfolio of BBT award projects. Colin also participated in the 2006 BBT showcase tour in Aldeburgh, London, Brussels, Amsterdam, Hamburg and Vienna, led by Christian Tetzlaff which included another world premiere, Written on a Train, by Richard Baker specially commissioned by BBT for the tour for a rather unusual ensemble of percussion, mezzo-soprano, string trio and piano.  And one of the many highlights of the BBT 10th anniversary weekend at London’s Southbank Centre in 2013 was Colin’s lively masterclass with young percussionists from the London music conservatoires.

Colin was supported with a BBT Award between 2005 and 2008.

For a current biography please visit colincurrie.com

Read a blog by Colin, Introducing Simon Holt’s a table of noises, here

Press Releases: Dave Maric Borrowed Time  / a table of noises

Photographs by James Glossop and Marco Borggreve