“I don’t want to work, I want to bang on the drum all day.” This was the sentiment expressed by Todd Rundgren some years back. For Colin Currie, he also wants to bang on the drum all day…and the marimba, cymbals, bells, and whatever else he can find. Such is the life now for a percussion soloist.
In a symphony orchestra, kettledrums were about it for ages. Not so anymore. With artists like Evelyn Glennie and Colin Currie around, percussion performance has taken on a whole new dimension.
This weekend, Collin Currie will play a percussion concerto written for him by Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara in two performances with the Columbus Symphony. If your first reaction is to stay away because you don’t know the composer, I’d ask you to reconsider. You’ll find an excerpt from that concerto, Incantations, below. If you have never seen a concerto which brings the percussion to the front of the stage, it’s both visually and aurally fascinating.
For further insight into this weekend’s performances, I refer you to Christopher Purdy’s blog from earlier this week. He will also be presenting a pre-concert discussion of not only Rautavaara’s Incantations, but the rest of the program as well.
On the same program is Ravel’s Bolero and Johannes Brahms’ Symphony No. 3. To learn more, be listening to Classical 101 this Friday morning. Colin Currie and CSO Music Director Rossen Milanov will join me at 9:00 for a conversation about the performance.
More details at columbussymphony.com.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GBhwvnYin8
