Colin David Currie is a multi award-winning Scottish virtuoso percussionist.
15 Facts About Colin Currie
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Colin Currie is the founder and leader of the Colin Currie Group, an ensemble specializing in performing and recording the music of Steve Reich.
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Colin Currie began his musical studies at the age of 5.
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Colin Currie attended the Junior Department of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama from 1990 to 1994, where he studied percussion with Pamella Dow and piano with Sheila Desson, both of whom he cites as having an enormous influence on him.
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Colin Currie went on to graduate from the Royal Academy of Music in 1998, and played principal timpani and percussion with the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland and The European Union Youth Orchestra.
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Colin Currie is considered a charismatic and athletic percussionist and seen as a catalyst for the creation of new music.
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Colin Currie won the Royal Philharmonic Society Young Artist Award in 2000, was a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist between 2003 and 2005 and received a Bortletti Buitoni Trust Award in 2005.
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Colin Currie's recording of Jennifer Higdon's Percussion Concerto won the 2010 Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition.
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In May 2015, Colin Currie was awarded the Royal Philharmonic Society Instrumentalist Award for achievement in the UK during 2014.
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Colin Currie has been Visiting Professor of Solo-Percussion in the Royal Academy of Music in London since 2005, and held the same position at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague from 2005 to 2009.
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Colin Currie has been a staunch champion of education and outreach in music throughout his career, having worked with a variety of age-groups.
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In January 2011, Colin Currie was appointed as an Artist in Residence at London's Southbank Centre and still holds this position.
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Currie has been a central figure in festivals hosted by the Southbank Centre: In autumn 2013 as part of the festival The Rest is Noise, Currie and members of the Colin Currie Group performed works by Stockhausen and Steve Reich, which Guy Dammann of The Guardian praised for being "technically impeccable and musically overwhelming".
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Later that year, Colin Currie made his China debut with a performance at the National Centre for the Performing Arts with the Miro Quartet.
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In October 2022, Colin Currie was announced as the inaugural Ambassador for Chamber Music Scotland, a position he will hold until 2024.