A Thought from Colin Currie

World-renowned percussionist Colin Currie recently wrote of some highlights from his autumn experiences around the world, and he closed with such kind and sincere praise of the TROMP competition, its jury members, and its 30 percussionists, especially the 3 finalists. The closing paragraph from his blog is reproduced below.

For all this, what truly sticks in my mind are thirty young percussionists from across the world who all traveled to Eindhoven for the TROMP Percussion Festival and competition. There I sat on the jury(with splendid new friends Nancy, Momoko, Terry, Arnold, Andrei and Emmanuel!) utterly AGOG as candidate after candidate would roll on and literally shock us with their artistry, emotion and aplomb. Each player had something to offer, and it was a humbling thing to give the world premiere of the test-piece, Michael Torke’s gorgeous “Mojave” to such an assembly. What a superb result, that the art of percussion is being upheld by these bright young players!! I was very moved and highly encouraged. Let me pay tribute briefly to the three finalists; Vassilena, you are fearless and brilliant and utterly embrace performing…Mike, you are a poet and the thinking musician’s percussionist – a maverick with grace and subtlety…Alexej, your musicianship fills a room no matter its size and your results have only come through your astonishing commitment and hard work. Congratulations to you all – this was an astounding collective victory for percussion!!

Happy December times and best wishes for the new year,

Colin.