Briefly - just finished a delightful week in the superb city of Bordeaux. Truly a great, and greatly European atmosphere; magnificent, historic, classy. Anyhow, I had to myself a plate of Fruits de Mer in Arcachon, and was TRANSPORTED by the incredible flavours and textures "therein"!! A high point of a very rewarding week... The orchestra was fantastic; very supportive and friendly. The Rouse concerto came over extremely well, and we did two interesting concerts for a school-age audience, involving a complete rendition of the concerto peppered by commentary specially created for the occasion. Inspiring! Best, Colin.
The Magic Months of January and February 2008!
Greetings friends! And greetings, indeed, from London, where I have finally come to rest after a mesmeric few weeks in the USA. A terrificly exciting time, and a variety of great honours came my way via some delightful and often unique performance opportunities. It was also a great chance to sell and promote my new Dave Maric recital CD, so my thanks to the many who did step up with their hard-earned! These discs are usually available at my live events, but for anyone not able to make it along to one, the Onyx website is easy to use and copies can be ordered there(www.onyxclassics.com) Well - enough brazen commercialism!! On with some of my news...January started with the excellent, the witty; Michael Stern and the Kansas City Symphony, and an opportunity to re-visit the Chris Rouse concerto. Entitled "Der Gerettete Alberich", I first learned this work in 1999, only the fourth concerto, and at that time certainly the trickiest piece, I'd ever learnt! It was great to have Chris along to these recent concerts, and it was a thrill to hear him discuss with such vehement passion his favourite US Presidents at 1am in a freezing parking lot! In such a way do post-concert dinners wind up. From Kansas City to Santa Barbara!! Truly a slice of paradise on earth; long runs by the ocean watching the sun come up, al fresco meals and the occasional hunt for missing Crotales(!) peppered my various rehearsals and concerts. Huge thanks and respect to the Santa Barbara Symphony! They put together an outstanding and stylistically varied "1st International Percussion Festival", and as I said at the closing reception, to me it felt like "Christmas every day for a week!" I'm particularly proud to have met there some of the most outstanding orchestral players in the country, Perry, Mike, Will and John will remain I trust great friends in the business - a friendship formed over an incredibly amusing set of rehearsals for amongst other things "Sharpened Stick", a work that no matter what only ever reached critical mass at a certain high tempo!! Lots and lots of fun. Then my concerts with the orchestra allowed me the sumptuous indulgence of performing Dave Maric's "Trilogy" alongside the Higdon concerto. I'm very happy to say that the natives seemed to gobble it all up, and I thoroughly enjoyed pairing these two works, something I'd be keen to repeat. Special "Thanks-ness!" to Miwa Gofuku, who patiently and brilliantly put the whole week together! Yay! A fun re-visit to Long Beach Symphony was followed by a recital in San Francisco - and my 4th programme in as many weeks! A challenge for me certainly, but Hakan Hardenberger was on STAGGERING form, and we had our strongest concert to date. An excellent audience was there for us at "San Francisco Performances" and my thanks to them for making my debut in that city so memorable. I then had chosen to travel home for 3 days, for some rest and practice before Baltimore and the US premiere of Steve Mackey's "Time Release". Truly a set of concerts I had long been warming up for, these performances were to take the most technically demanding and most sustained work in my repertoire to Carnegie Hall in New York, as well as the concerts in Baltimore (taken for XFM national radio) and a final show in Long Island. I'm especially impressed with Steve's amazing writing here - a highly ambitious and engaging work, it is the perfect "Anti-percussion concerto", in the sense of its intimacy, understatement and inner beauty. The Baltimore orchestra sounded amazing - and they relished the colours and passions of the new piece. My great friend Marin Alsop was her usual steady, hip, and reliable self, allowing me all the comfort and freedom I need to go about tackling such a mental work-out...and as for Carnegie hall!! Well - the acoustic was just astonishing!!!! The marimba sounded absolutely glorious on-stage, and I think Ron Samuals from MarimbaOne was quite flabbergasted by how special the new instrument he had made for the occasion sounded! It was a terrific concert experience for me, and I was delighted by the audience reaction.
Otherwise, I'm thinking ahead to a very involved Spring...the UK premiere of Nyman's marimba concerto, a trip to Kuala Lumpur to perform one of my favourite ever percussion works ("Ruby" by Joe Duddell) and in May the world premiere of Simon Holt's concerto "A Table of Noises" all should add up for a rich and varied time of it!! Shorter-term, I have a thai curry to perfect this evening...!
Best wishes and thanks for stopping by,
Colin.
Colin's Alimentary Apocrypha!
Greetings and a very happy new year. Enjoying local delicacies is the natural pursuit of many an itinerant artist, or certainly one worth their Maldon Sea Salt. Trapped, stranded, abroad, away from my kitchen, spices and cooking partner, often do I turn to the (potential!) comfort of a decent meal, or make a project out of hunting down that special bar or funky lounge. So to that end, I thought I'd post some foodie notes, randomly, and see if there might be some interest, or even a connection out there with any of the following... Favourite mealtime selections - Breakfast; Pain au chocolate, a couple of espressos and fresh OJ. Lunch; Bento Box. Dinner; Italian food, maybe Antipasti followed by salt-baked Sea Bass with spinach, then sorbets.
Favourite liquid refreshments - Sparkling water with ice and lemon, Burgundy wines or Pinot Noirs from Oregon, real ale.
Favourite restaurants - Uli(All Saints Road, London), Sally Clarke(Kensington Church Street, London) Sugiyama(Japanese in NYC), Cal Pep(Barcelona), Irene Legrandi Antique(Budapest; for the most entertaining meal out of your life, guaranteed!)
Favourite Pubs - The Eagle(Farringdon Road, London), The Landsdowne(Primrose Hill, London), The Alex(now closed, Lancaster, fond memories!)
Top Bars - Mandarin Oriental Hotel(NYC), Nu Teras(Istanbul), Rosa's Shot Bar(Kabuki-cho, Tokyo, for the best Filipino Karaoke in the world, and I've tried a few!)
Favourite Hotels - The Heathman(Portland Oregon, for sheer excellence of service and down to earth comfort and catering), The Halekulani(Honolulu), Al Bustan Palace Hotel(Muscat, Oman)
Favourite chef - Kevin McConkey; Freind, and "expert of good times"!
So - as I embark on this month's US tour, let's see if I can't endeavor to amend and upgrade the above...the search is on, and all suggestions/dinner invitations are gratefully received!
Best, Colin.
New Dawn Fades - I get the Joy Division bug...
Greetings - and have YOU heard Joy Division?! This is a question I have been asking around the past few weeks. Some ready-converts scoff and respond with a knowing laugh at my rare foray into the world of pop music. Others have not been so fortunate, and I set about them, obtaining their word that they will have a listen, and soon. I was always intrigued by their record company Factory Records from my work with Steve Martland, and subsequent close association with composer Joe Duddell, whose eulogies on Joy Division were always given an air of authenticity by his droll Mancunian accent. The (excellent) BBC documentary aired recently on BBC4 spurred me on to get hold of some music, and I have quickly come to obsess about Joy Division's album "Unknown Pleasures" especially. It has many rare things, all too absent from more commercially inclined music - pop, classical or otherwise; a natural honesty, originality, boldness, integrity and purpose. I am definitely inspired by this music; the band sounds great(clangy guitars, unexpected bass-line adventures, tubby driving drums) and the energetic turmoil displayed so selflessly by Ian Curtis really rattles. I might be behind the times, but it is all the more intriguing to be making this circuitous route "back" to pop music. Not just any pop music of course.... Excellent trips recently - a great honour to play with the Bergen Philharmonic and classic to see fellow Firrhill High School graduate Tom Hunter in the percussion section there - bravo Tom! The Higdon concerto continues to burn brightly in the US, and a big thankyou to Frank Almond and the Milwaukee Symphony who were so positive in welcoming such a loud drummer! The European premiere of this work is in December chez London Philharmonic - I have now played the work 21 times, with many more performances in the pipeline.
Well - somewhat jetlagged/partylagged from another great visit to Chicago (where I stayed with good friends Kevin McConkey and Josephine Lee, boy do they look after you!!) so off to the sofa to continue Michel Houellebecq's latest novel "The Possibility of an Island"...acerbic stuff!
Best, Colin.
Back to school...!
Well good morning all! Seriously back to practice now after a terrific Summer and an few easy weeks. The new Simon Holt concerto is on the music stand, the metronome is cranked down to 11 and the slow work is in painful progress. Amazing new piece! Ambitious, cheeky, intense, powerful. A unique addition to our repertoire, which I intend to play often. Everyone also please check out his amazing violin concerto "Witness to a Snow Miracle", it is completely stunning. Similarly, very chuffed with the reaction to my new ONYX disc, which got its first (5 star) review the other day as disc of the week in the Daily Telegraph, and a great time at the Proms this season with the superb BBC Scottish Symphony who played awesomely on August 16th. Otherwise, kitchen activities abound, including our annual wine-tasting event(THE hot Summer ticket) and a terrific new cocktail creation, based on Sloe gin and freshly squeezed fruit juices. As the new term starts, best wishes too to all my students at the RAM and the Conservatoire in the Hague - looking forward to another year of grafting, and grinning!! Best, Colin.