Kurt Schwertsik and Stephen Barlow: percussionist Colin Currie joins the Northern Chamber Orchestra

Colin Currie (Photo Linda Nylind)

Scottish percussionist Colin Currie will be joining the Northern Chamber Orchestra at its next concert at the Stoller Hall, Manchester on 17 January 2020. Conducted by Stephen Barlow, Currie and the NCO will be performing Viennese composer Kurt Schwertsik's Now you hear me, now you don't, and Stephen Barlow's own Nocturnal (also with NCO's principal clarinet Elizabeth Jordan). The programme is completed with music by Grieg, Delius and Dvorak.

Stephen Barlow has a long-standing relationship with the NCO as he was the artistic director of the Buxton Festival from 2011 to 2018 where the NCO was in residence, so Barlow frequently conducted them in the pit of Buxton Opera House.

Austrian composer Kurt Schwertsik (born 1935) studied with Stockhausen, but rejected serialism in favour of new forms of tonality. Drawing inspiration from sources as diverse as Eric Satie and the Dadaist movement, Schwertsik's mercurial music is characterised by a lightness of touch, sense of irony and even humour. His Now you hear me, now you don't for marimba and strings was premiered in 2009 with Currie performing with the Scottish Ensemble.

Full details of the Northern Chamber Orchestra's concert from their website.