On the premiere of Elliott Carter's "Conversations"

When I was 13 years old, my imagination was set scampering by Elliott Carter's "Variations for Orchestra" (1954-55). At that time  I was visiting the Edinburgh Music Library on a weekly basis, digging for treasure in the scores department. Those that exhibited modernist credentials were duly borrowed and among the Boulez, Berio and Stockhausen that I had on permanent renewal was the full score for the Carter. This music simply looked so fascinating on the page; its intriguing tempo games and crystalline instrumental details combining with an evident and monumental sense of drama. I managed to catch a BBC broadcast of the work played (brilliantly) by the BBC Philharmonic and putting the sounds to the symbols on the page was even more of a thrill that I imagined it would be. More than twenty years later I receive in the mail the full score for the now 102-year-old Elliott Carter's latest work, the "Conversations" for Solo Piano, Solo Percussion and Chamber Orchestra. The first light-headed chill and personal resonance comes in the very first measures; "Variations for Orchestra" starts with three discrete chords for the wind, strings and brass...and I see that, eerily, my new work begins with precisely the same aural-palette-cleansing device. I read on. And appear to have a modern masterpiece in my hands, a gem of scherzando wit and ebullience. I am humbled, but not enough to delay my race to the marimba to check out the licks and chords I will be playing shortly. They crackle and scream, they laugh and shock. This is going to be a lot of fun.

I had decided in the first place to inquire about this double concerto idea a couple of years ago. Carter seemed to be ignoring his advanced age, so I thought I'd do the same and ask Boosey and Hawkes about the idea of having him write a work for percussion and piano soloists with ensemble. I thought it might catch his imagination, especially in the light of recent works for percussion (the marimba Figment and Tintinnabulation), and the sensational ensemble pieces "ASKO Concerto", "Dialogues" and the "Boston Concerto".

Extremely happily, the premiere was with dear friend and close colleague Pierre-Laruent Aimard, plus new friends the BCMG and old friend Oliver Knussen. I have many great experiences from about ten years ago playing with Olly as a part of the London Sinfonietta (Andriessen and Henze at the Proms, Xenakis works), including the UK premiere of Carter's opera "What Next?" where I even donned a builder's hard hat as part of the concert performance. So it was with great zest and inquisitive spirit that we worked together again on this new work. The rehearsals were fascinating and I recall thinking at one precise moment (as a clarinet group of five suddenly transported us into a faster tempo where the same speed of notes were divided into groups of three) "Wow - a REAL Carter piece!"

At the premiere in Aldeburgh the work received hungry applause and we immediately played the piece from the beginning once again. Each performance is going to uncover something new with this work, and second time round I felt even more free to explore the latent mischief and expressivity within the work. In "Conversations", the final gesture of cackling winds and strings followed by soft extremities of register from the soloists leaves much ambiguity in the air...but one certainty also - Elliott Carter has much more to write.

Season 2011/12 - a season of four diverse concerto premieres

In announcing my 2011/12 season and the arrival of four new concertos into my repertoire, by Askell Masson, Sally Beamish, Kalevi Aho and Joseph Pereira, I'd like to say a few words about each of these works. Firstly, I do not recall a more diverse list of premieres in any season past, nor one with such great volume of music. The Masson and Aho are both complete and have taken on symphonic structures and proportions. The Masson develops many of his techniques and percussion tricks from over the years (I recently played his double concerto "Crossings" in Iceland") and followers of his idiomatic percussion style are in for a big thrill with a four movement work each with an ingenious set-up, culminating in a ferocious four-mallet percussion cadenza. The Aho will see me begin on hand drums - djembe and darbuka - then begin a steady journey from stage left, to stage right (where a tam-tam awaits for a brief solo-cadenza!) and back again over the course of a 30 minute work which will use the orchestra in his typically expansive way. Prominent roles for two orchestral percussion and timpanist promise a fine collaboration with my dear friends in the London Philharmonic - very exciting! The Beamish and Pereira concentrate on a more intimate sonority, each a concertante work with chamber orchestra. The Beamish promises a set of "dance variations" and we have spoken at length about the charm of this idea and how we can have me integrate within the ensemble to greatest effect. As always, it will be a great honour to perform with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra while the US Premire at Stanford Arts represents a debut for me including educational and recital events alongside. The Pereira will be a fantastic new piece for me with a long future ahead of it - Joseph is a greatly imaginative writer and I'm certain the work will be ambitious, fastidious, fun and full-on. And I get to collaborate with Gustavo Dudamel!!

Otherwise, I look forward to various debuts - Zurich, Aspen, Houston, Madrid and my Balkan debut in Estonia with HK Gruber. The tweets and facebook fanpage posts will be thick and fast, so clock on there for a more complete stream of how the season unfolds!

Many thanks for reading,

Colin

Four Fab Summer Festivals

The summer season can throw out some interesting opportunities and combine a diversity of repertoire with some of the more unusual or exciting performance venues. This year I had four exceptional experiences, which I felt combined well to describe the nature of what this time of year can bring... Styriarte Festival Graz, Austria

This trip was to meet up once again with Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Tamara Stefanovich to perform Bartok's "Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion". As ever, I brought my partner in crime Sam Walton with me and we relished this concert in particular as PLA had programmed the Bartok alongside ( in some cases re-workings and new versions of) pieces by Ligeti, Steve Reich, Eotvos,  Nancarrow and Kurtag. It is such a great pleasure to be part of this quartet; Pierre-Laurent seems to know not of limits in music - and every moment of both rehearsal and concert show such care and consideration to sound and balance, clarity and projection. To be on-stage next to him as he embarks on a piece like Ligeti's Etude "Fem" is to hear instrumental achievement at its highest; it is astounding to hear such graceful and precise sense of timing, and such absolute control so excited by the spontaneity of the moment.

Sam and I also loved the city; the world cup was on and the place was very lively at night. We ran by the river, hired bikes and ate extremely well at the Santa Clara restaurant. As ever, the lottery attendant on hiring timpani abroad was not absent; my second drum only achieved a top 'e' by having its flimsy front leg generously gaffa-taped to the stage and by my applying an eccentric amount of pedal pressure, causing me to levitate momentarily above my timp-stool!

BBC Proms - Simon Holt concerto

After some careful deliberation as whether the Holt concerto would sink or swim in the vast space of the Albert Hall, all parties agreed that it would fare well and so it was that I got to play this masterpiece at the Proms this year. As it turned out, the music seemed to gain an extra set of legs(and teeth and arms and pincers!) from the greedy acoustic, and to play this work in this space proved to be an absolute career highlight. It was lovely to be paired up with fellow Holt-fanatic Thierry Fischer, and we had such a fascinating time teasing out the splinters of subtlety contained in this witty, boisterous and beautiful score. The solo movement was a splendid thing in the Albert Hall and I enjoyed bringing the whole thing down to a soothing stillness and out to full mania as the composer's scope encourages. This concerto is a major blessing for contemporary music and I am so glad it also received some pretty epic reviews from this performance.

Cabrillo Music Festival- Higdon

I made my debut at the Cabrillo Festival in 1996 aged 19 playing the MacMillan concerto. I returned in 2000 to play the Rouse but this was my first time since that occasion, so it was with many elements of nostalgia that I found myself back in Surf City USA. This is a remarkable festival, made up entirely of contemporary music; this year, every composer who had a work played attended, including Turnage, Glass, Adams and my own and highly beloved Jennifer Higdon. The orchestra is made up of enthusiasts for new music and is a terrific group. Part of this festival experience is contributing in one's own way to getting the word out to the public - and so it was that I found myself busking on a downtown metallic art-installation one night to get some publicity done for us all. You can verify this on Youtube as below![youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_KryN-2v70]

I also had great experiences via my host, who treated me to walks in the redwoods, participation in a wine-making operation, and some great inside info on the hot spots to get good burritos, good coffee and good cocktails! I also had a surf lesson with Anna Clyne, which was terrific! I hope to take this forward somewhat in New Zealand next month - let's see what happens!

Grand Teton Music Festival - Higdon

Okay - who thought of this one!!? Let's place a major US orchestra at the centre of a high-end ski resort for seven weeks every summer in the most stunning and imposing surroundings imaginable!! Good on them, whoever they were for the Grand Teton Music Festival celebrates its 50th season next year - and I was mightily impressed with the entire experience this August. Wyoming is as spectacular a place as I ever saw - the Tetons themselves arranged in vast splendor before you even as you get off the plane(Jackson Hole is the only airport in the US situated in a National Park). This was a wonderful week of music making, and it was yet again such a thrill to play Jennifer's piece, which got a standing ovation at the open dress rehearsal. The hall they have there is also extremely fine, and the opening marimba murmurs sounded better than ever. River trips, hikes and various wildlife encounters delighted our visit(I was joined by my girlfriend Kerenza on this trip!) and the McBean apartment, not long vacated by Stephen Hough, was an extremely comfy crash-pad in which to cook, sleep and sit in the rocking chair on the balcony looking at the stars.

Back in London now, I'm gearing up for my New Zealand trip, which also promises many great things, this time accompanied by my father. Congratulations to Huw Watkins and Alina Ibrgimova also, on the premiere of Huw's Violin Concerto at the Proms which I was at last week. A great piece of music that inherits from Tippett and carries on somewhere else new and challenging.

Colin.

Introducing the 2010/11 Season

The season for 2010/11 sees some very exciting programming and many adventures, which I thought I'd shed some light on before it all kicks off! As ever, the focus is on the premieres and the repeat performances of recent premieres, and this season really has this as its theme. Dutch whizz Joey Roukens has his concerto premiere in Rotterdam in May 2011 and in an interesting conceit it will be programmed with Milhaud's Concerto for Marimba and Vibraphone(my first time playing that piece) so that the evening will effectively include the world's newest mallet concerto alongside its oldest. The duo with Hakan Hardenberger gets a makeover, with three world premieres to spruce up its programme too; new works by Lukas Ligeti, Tobias Brostrom and Christian Muthspiel will get rehearsed in a residency in Aldeburgh before concerts in Germany and the Far East. Simon Holt, Jennifer Higdon, Kurt Schwertsik, Einojuhani Rautavaara, and Alexander Goehr all see repeat renditions of their works written for me in recent seasons, and the Rautavaara will also be committed to a CD recording with The Helsinki Philharmonic for Ondine. No season is really a season without a go at HK Gruber's majestic and boisterous  "Rough Music" either, so I look forward to the Canadian Premiere of that work in Edmonton, alongside a percussion-focus presented there by the Edmonton Symphony. Chamber music collaborations see happy development too, with my first tour with The Miro Quartet in Austin and Washington DC, another tour of Harrison Birtwistle's "The Axe manual" (paired with Maxwell Davies' "Vesalii Icones") in Scotland,  and the continuation of The Colin Currie Group's work building on the elation of last year's success at London's South Bank Centre. Further adding to repertoire for percussion and string quartet,  I will premiere a new work by Michael Torke at the TROMP Festival in Eindhoven, "Mojave", which will also exist in a version for marimba and orchestra. I'm also looking forward to various Bartok Sonata performances, with Martha Argerich and Stephen Kovacevich in London's Wigmore Hall, and a special event in Graz conceived by long-standing colleague Pierre-Laurent Aimard in which the Sonata will be aired alongside capricious adaptations of works by Eotvos, Ligeti, Reich and Kurtag.

September sees my debut with The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra (as well as a holiday there with my father!) and I'm also very excited to be visiting The Grand Teton Music Festival for the first time too. My re-visit to The Cabrillo Festival will mean alot to me personally, having made my US debut there a full fourteen years ago. I can now count exactly 100 professional orchestras that I have collaborated with so far, and would like to thank Marin Alsop especially, for that debut all those years ago that led little by little to all these wonderful opportunities which I cherish so very much.

Enjoy!!

Colin.

Meeting Steve Reich and announcing my new band!

On Tuesday 16th February, The Colin Currie Group with Synergy Vocals gave their first official concert at London's South Bank Centre. The event was part of the International Chamber Music Series presented there and as such it was most refreshing and rewarding to be performing alongside the great string quartets and chamber musicians of our day. The group itself has been assembled, and now given an official name, as a statement of intent by its members to perform the music of Steve Reich at the highest level. Originally put together by me to perform a 70th birthday concert for the composer at the BBC Proms in 2006, I decided that the whole thing was just way too much fun and far too exciting to only do as a one-off. So, in discussion with my management at Intermusica, we have now pushed the project on to become a touring ensemble that will play various Reich works, but very often centred around the masterpiece from 1971 "Drumming". On this occasion in London, we were thrilled to have Steve Reich present, and to offer him the (as it turned out) rare chance for him to hear the work from the audience's perspective as he usually is up on stage himself taking part, playing with his own musicians. I'll never forget his ecstatic reaction to our version and his generosity in going round each individual on stage during  the ovation to thank them in person - just a fantastic moment for us all. In Birmingham's Town Hall on the 20th, we repeated "Drumming" and also added in "Clapping Music", "Nagoya Marimbas" and the glorious "Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ". The ensemble sounded brilliant - it is an amazing line-up of players and an honour for me to have such fantastic percussion colleagues who are so dedicated and enthusiastic. We also tend to have rather a good time, with the just the right amount of jocularity - Sam Walton is always at the ready with that groan-worthy pun...and we give him plenty of material to work with!

As for Steve Reich and the chance to work on his repertoire, this really is a dream come true for me. I adore his music and have endless admiration for his unique creativity. His sense of timbre and harmony unite for something that is out of this world, and to perform "Drumming" especially really taps into something very deep and at the root of what it is to be a percussionist. We look forward to many more outings playing this and more of his works, truly one of the most special opportunities one can have as a performer of new music.

Thanks to everyone who made this launch so memorable - there are and will be many more concerts to follow as a result!