Colin Currie

Colin David Currie is a multi award-winning Scottish virtuoso percussionist. He is the founder and leader of the Colin Currie Group, an ensemble specializing in performing and recording the music of Steve Reich. Biography Early years Colin Currie began his musical studies at the age of 5. He 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. He 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. However, solo-performance and chamber music had by that time become his main focus. Currie first came to national attention when he won the Gold Medal of the Shell/LSO Competition in 1992, and was subsequently the first percussionist to reach the finals of the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition in 1994.