Scotland has produced two world-renowned percussionists,
Evelyn Glennie and
Colin Currie. Newer on the scene,
Currie is a veteran, nevertheless, having drawn international notice from around the turn of the century. Not surprisingly, he has performed much modern repertory, including works written specifically for him, but he also delves into more mainstream fare.
Currie has appeared with major orchestras from around the world and regularly appears in recitals at major international concert venues. He has collaborated with soprano
Dawn Upshaw, the
Labèque sisters, the Through the Looking Glass Ensemble, the Peterson String Quartet, and his ensembles, the
Colin Currie Group and Colin Currie Quartet. In addition,
Currie serves as a visiting professor at both London's Royal Academy of Music and The Hague's Royal Conservatory of Music. He has recorded for EMI, Naxos, Telarc, and other major labels.
Currie was born in Edinburgh, on September 25, 1976. He began piano studies at five and took drum lessons from age six. From 1990-1994, he studied percussion with Pamella Dow and piano with Sheila Desson at Glasgow's Royal Conservatory of Scotland. He won the gold medal at the 1992 Shell/
London Symphony Orchestra Music Scholarship competition. Two years later, he became a finalist at the prestigious BBC Young Musician of the Year competition, the first percussionist to do so. His final-round performance there,
Errollyn Wallen's Concerto for Percussion, was broadcast live over BBC television. 1998 was a pivotal year for
Currie: he graduated from the Royal Academy of Music in London, and his first recording, Striking a Balance -- Contemporary Percussion Music, was issued by EMI. A collection of works by
Chick Corea,
Steve Reich,
Ney Rosauro, and others, the album garnered international acclaim.
Currie's repertory includes standard works such as transcriptions of
J.S. Bach and
Ravel and concertos by
Milhaud and
Jolivet. More impressively, he has been the dedicatee of many new compositions by major contemporary composers, including
Elliott Carter,
Jennifer Higdon,
Steven Mackey,
Michael Torke,
Michael Nyman,
Thea Musgrave,
Kalevi Aho, and others.
In 2001,
Currie was given the Royal Philharmonic Society Young Artist Award for the year 2000. In 2002, he debuted in the U.S. and Japan, and in 2003 premiered
Joe Duddell's percussion concerto Ruby at the BBC Proms with the
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra under
Marin Alsop.
Currie was a BBC New Generation Artist from 2003-2005, touring the U.S. in 2004 with the
Los Angeles Guitar Quartet. In 2006, he founded the
Colin Currie Group, a 12-member ensemble dedicated to performing the music of
Reich; the group's highly successful debut took place that year at a BBC Proms concert. To offer a range of more varied music for percussion quartet,
Currie founded the Colin Currie Quartet in 2018.
In 2007,
Currie played the Higdon Percussion Concerto with the
London Philharmonic Orchestra under
Alsop. This acclaimed live performance was issued on the
LPO label in 2009 and became a 2010 Grammy winner for Best Contemporary Composition.
Currie was appointed artist-in-residence at Southbank Centre, London, in 2011, and, in 2014, the Southbank Centre organized the Metal, Wood, Skin Festival, which was dedicated to
Currie and featured the premieres of several new works for percussion. Among his more acclaimed recordings is his 2012 Ondine release of
Einojuhani Rautavaara's Concerto for Percussion, Incantations. He created the Colin Currie Records label in 2018, issuing a recording of
Reich's Drumming and the album Scene of the Crime that year. In 2020,
Currie was featured on a BIS album of
music by Aho.