Colin Currie Group review – Turnage’s percussion sextet is varied and vivid

Queen Elizabeth Hall, London
Alongside Mark-Anthony Turnage’s New England Études (receiving its UK premiere), works by Julia Wolfe, Steve Reich and Rolf Wallin were played with immaculate precision

Percussionist Colin Currie originally created the group that carries his name specifically to play Steve Reich’s early percussion-based works, but it has steadily extended its repertoire well beyond the music of the great American minimalist. So, while their latest concert did include works by Reich, it also featured pieces by Julia Wolfe and Rolf Wallin, and ended with the UK premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s New England Études, for percussion sextet.

The six short movements of Turnage’s piece were first performed in Boston last year. They call for a wide range of pitched and unpitched instruments, alternating between music in which the focus is on the interplay of rhythmically characterised ideas, and movements in which the interest is predominantly melodic, whether quietly lyrical or stompingly energetic. The fifth is entitled Bells for Ukraine and conjures a consoling, hymn-like melody from marimbas and vibraphones, emerging out of a chiming halo of gongs and bells. Alongside the other works in the programme, the sequence seemed strikingly varied and vividly coloured. Currie conducted the premiere; elsewhere he was very much one of the performers.