Metal, Wood, Skin: The Colin Currie Percussion Festival, South Bank Centre

This autumn, something loud and rhythmic is heading for the South Bank. Metal, Wood, Skin is an unprecedented celebration of percussion in contemporary music, centered on artist-in-residence Colin Currie. There will be collaborative performances and conversations with performers, centered around five diverse concerts. New works by four composers, specially written for Currie, will be premiered.

Colin Currie is, according to Steve Reich, “one of the greatest musicians working in the world today.” Currie is renowned for his physicality, musicality and precision, deploying everything from bird-whistles and bull-roarers to Burmese gongs with grace and flair. An advocate for new music and a tireless promoter of musical education, he has become the percussionist of choice for numerous composers. In 2011 he attracted rapturous acclaim for the premier of Elliott Carter’s concerto Conversations, performed with legendary pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard. His performances of Stockhausen’s seminal Kontakte and Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians were highlights of last year’s Rest is Noise season at the South Bank Centre, and this year his winning streak looks set to continue. 

The festival opens on Sept 17th with the Youth Orchestra of Bahia performing Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 (1889), a titanic work that balances cosmic rage with the earthly sounds of street bands. It will be prefaced by riSE and fLY (2012) by Julia Wolfe, a vibrant evocation of the New York streets in which Currie must play his own flesh.

On the 5th Oct, innovative Dutch ensemble Asko|Schönberg will join Currie for two works by Louis Andriessen – 1970s ping-pong piece Hoketus and the newly commissioned Tapdance – along with pieces from Anna Clyde and Tansy Davis. A week later on the 12th, the Colin Currie Group will be joined by Steve Reich for four works including a world premiere. Reich and Currie will perform together in the hypnotic Clapping Music (1972). 

The Aurora Orchestra return to the South Bank on the 11th November for a tribute to the recently deceased Steve Martland, an idiosyncratic composer who fused classical, jazz and rock influences. Two of his pieces will be accompanied by work from Purcell, John Adams and Dave Maric. 

The festival closes on the 11th Dec with the Philharmonia, who combine the frenzied folk dances of Prokofiev and Kodály with James MacMillan’s electrifying new Percussion Concerto No. 2, dedicated to Currie by the composer.

Before each concert, there will be talks with the musicians. The Clore Ballroom, on the Royal Festival Hall’s ground floor, will host free performances from the Trinity Laban Conservatoire and the Royal Academy of Music. And Currie has extended an invitation to all young percussion bands to come and play in the centre’s foyers.