Donemus Webwinkel — Currie, Fergus

Fergus Currie was born in 1961 in Edinburgh, Scotland. He studied musical composition and double bass at the Royal Academy of Music in London. He has played with many of Britain’s leading symphonic and chamber orchestras, including the BBCSSO, the RSNO, Scottish Opera Orchestra, the Amati Ensemble and the City of London Chamber Orchestra. In 1991 he joined the newly founded Kamerata, resident chamber orchestra at the Athens Concert Hall. Since 2010, Fergus has been acting sub-principal double bass in the orchestra of the Greek National Opera.
His compositions include many works for chamber ensembles – his two major works for string orchestra, Serenade for Strings and Sinfonietta, were recorded by Christopher Warren-Green and the London Chamber Orchestra in 2006. His Stabat Mater was performed by the Greek National Opera in 2014, his string quartet, Quadrature, and the duet for double bass and alto flute, The Riddle of the Sphinx, were performed in 2018. His most recent work, Two Japanese Screen Paintings, for large chamber ensemble was to be performed in 2029 in Birmingham but was postponed due to the Covid-19 epidemic. His Romanza for double bass and piano was recorded by CBSO principal bassist, Tony Alcock in 2020. Tony Alcock commissioned an unaccompanied suite for solo double bass in late 2020, which will be completed shortly.
As a conductor, orchestrator and arranger, Fergus has collaborated with major Greek artists such as Mikis Theodorakis, singer Alexia Vasiliou, and film composers Eleni Karaindrou and Pangiotis Kalantzopoulos. He is an accomplished jazz musician both as a player and as a composer/arranger. The album Timeless Visions was recorded by his own trio Full Circle in 2000 and was recently included in a list of the 50 most important Greek jazz recordings. He was also a member of the Minas Alexiadis Trio from 1992 until 1999, and has acted as director and arranger for various big bands including the Greek National Radio Big Band between 1994 and 2009.
Fergus is also an active author. He has written two novels, Murder in the Doghouse and the Grangemouth Conspiracy, as well as the librettos for Christos Papageorgiou’s musical Onassis Callas, and Nestor Taylor’s Eleni. In 2019, he received an MRes degree from the University of Birmingham for his research into the compositional techniques of Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu. His first book of modular origami designs, Compound Polyhedra, will be released in October 2021 (Tarquin Group).