Hailed as being “at the summit of percussion performance today” (Gramophone), Colin Currie is a solo and chamber artist who champions new music at the highest level. Currie is the soloist of choice for many of today’s foremost composers and conductors, and has appeared with leading orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Philharmonia Orchestra and London Philharmonic Orchestra.
A dynamic and adventurous soloist, Currie’s commitment to commissioning and creating new music was recognised by the Royal Philharmonic Society in 2015, when he was presented with the Instrumentalist Award. Currie has premiered works by composers such as Steve Reich, Louis Andriessen, HK Gruber, Sir James MacMillan, Mark Anthony Turnage, Jennifer Higdon, Guillaume Connesson, Brett Dean, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Helen Grime, Kalevi Aho, Julia Wolfe, Andy Akiho, Andrew Norman, Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Elliott Carter, Bruno Mantovani, Gavin Higgins, Nicole Lizée, Danny Elfman and most recently Vasa, a recital work by Dani Howard.
Highlights of the 2025/26 season include the World Premiere of a new percussion concerto by Tansy Davies at the 2026 Aldeburgh Festival with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Kevin John Edusei. The season opens with a major European tour with Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Maxim Emelyanychev, performing James MacMillan’s Veni Veni Emmanuel – a work Currie has performed more than 150 times. Other concerto appearances include the world premiere of a new Double Concerto Memoirs by Erkki-Sven Tüür with Tamsin Waley-Cohen and United Strings of Europe, Kalevi Aho’s Sieidi with Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto, Louis Andriessen’s Tapdance and Julia Wolfe’s Body Language with Belgian National Orchestra, the German premiere of Andy Akiho’s Percussion Concerto with Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, Nicole Lizée’s Blurr is the Colour of My True Love’s Eyes with Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and Danny Elfmann’s Percussion Concerto with Buffalo Philharmonic and Oregon Symphony.
Currie opens the 2025/26 season by launching a new collaboration with The King’s Singers built around Steve Martland’s Street Songs alongside premieres of new works by Sir James MacMillan, Missy Mazzoli and Roderick Williams. The tour begins at the Edinburgh International Festival before further performances at Kings Place London and Muziekgebouw Amsterdam.
Colin Currie Quartet continue their trailblazing exploration of percussion quartet repertoire and their ongoing commitment to commissioning new music by the next generation of composers. Recent premieres include works by Anna Meredith, Freya Waley-Cohen, Ben Nobuto and Aileen Sweeney. In the 25/26 season, the Quartet will give the world premiere of a new work by Joe Duddell at King’s Place, as well as performing at Two Moors Festival, ConcertLab Utrecht, Barber Institute Birmingham, West Road Concert Hall Cambridge and Concentus Morivae Festival. Currie also performs a variety of chamber and solo recital programmes this season including at Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and with Sheffield Music in The Round.
Currie’s conducting career launched with the Colin Currie Group in performances of music by Steve Reich, and quickly grew into programmes exploring American minimalism and contemporary British composers. He has conducted the London Symphony Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra, Asko/Schoenberg Ensemble, Britten Sinfonia, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Lapland Chamber Orchestra, Grafenegg Academy and São Paulo Symphony Music Academy, among others. The 25/26 season will see him make his conducting debut with the BBC Philharmonic in a programme featuring works by Steve Reich, John Adams and Gabriella Smith, a return project with Scottish Chamber Orchestra and a play/direct programme with the Belgian National Orchestra.
The Colin Currie Group was formed by Currie in 2006 to celebrate the music of Steve Reich, making its five-star debut at the BBC Proms. Since then, with Reich’s personal endorsement, Currie and his virtuosic ensemble have performed at many venues and festivals internationally. In 2021 they premiered a substantial new work by Reich, Traveler’s Prayer, which was commissioned by the Zaterdag Matinee at the Concertgebouw, Royal Festival Hall, Elbphilharmonie, Philharmonie de Paris, Carnegie Hall, CAL Performances and Tokyo Opera City. This season, the Group perform Drumming in Madrid and debut a new programme celebrating the music of Steve Martland at King’s Place.
In 2017, Currie partnered with LSO Live to launch Colin Currie Records, a platform for recording his diverse projects. He has since released three Colin Currie Group discs including Reich’s Drumming, commended as “thunderously exciting” (The Times); their most recent release Music for 18 Musicians was recorded at Abbey Road Studios and has been lauded as “a sublime and reflective recording” (Gramophone Editor’s Choice). Colin Currie Records has also released a duo disc with Håkan Hardenberger, and an album of HK Gruber’s Percussion Concertos with the BBC Philharmonic. Currie has two releases of Reich with Nonesuch, and recordings of concertos including Danny Elfman for Sony Classical, Elliott Carter for Ondine, Simon Holt for NMC, James MacMillan for Challenge Classics; his recording of Higdon’s Percussion Concerto with the London Philharmonic/Alsop won a Grammy, and Rautavaara’s Incantations with the Helsinki Philharmonic/Storgårds won a Gramophone Award. The Colin Currie Group recently recorded their fourth album on Colin Currie Records, The Sextets. This highly anticipated recording is due for release in Spring 2026 and will mark the first time all of Steve Reich’s sextets have been compiled on one album.
Currie has been Artist in Association at London’s Southbank Centre, Artistic Curator of the Grafenegg Academy, Artist in Residence with Oregon Symphony Orchestra, Artist in Residence at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and is currently Visiting Professor of Modern Ensembles at the Royal Academy of Music and Artistic Director of the Colin Currie Group.
See Colin Currie conduct A Celebration of Steve Reich with the RSNO on 6 March 2027.
