Dame Evelyn Glennie Evelyn Glennie By Lauren Vogel Weiss “It’s important to grab on to any opportunity that comes your way, but you also need to practice the art of creating your own opportunities.” Evelyn Glennie is a percussionist of many firsts: first full-time solo percussionist in the world; first to perform a percussion concerto at London’s Royal Academy of Music; first to give a percussion recital and concerto performance at BBC’s Henry Wood Promenade Concerts (“Proms”); first percussionist to be awarded the Dame Commander of the British Empire (DBE); and the youngest person ever to be elected to the PAS Hall of Fame. So instead of looking back on the career of Evelyn Glennie, we can only review her life and accomplishments thus far. Many more decades of music lie ahead for this energetic Scotswoman. On June 25, 2008, Dame Evelyn met Queen Elizabeth II to officially accept the honor that had been bestowed upon her the year before. Evelyn was also distinguished with the title Officer of the British Empire (OBE) for her service to music in 1993, at the tender age of 27.

“I’m fairly young to receive either of these honors,” Evelyn humbly explains, “but I’m delighted to accept them. There hasn’t been a knighthood given to a percussionist before, let alone a solo percussionist. We are still figuring out the best way to use this title, but it will obviously help us with the charitable, educational, and corporate work that we do.” From Dame to PAS Hall of Fame—how does it feel to be given this percussive honor? “It was a delightful surprise!” Evelyn smiles. “PAS gave me a lot of inspiration in my early years.” She first attended PASIC ’85 in Los Angeles, accompanying her mentor James Blades (who had been inducted into the PAS Hall of Fame a decade earlier). “That experience was incredible! The hugeness of it all, meeting new people, and being in a different country, as well as a different climate; the whole package is something I won’t ever forget.

James Blades was the person who introduced me to PAS, which was a priceless gift.” Evelyn Glennie has performed clinics, concerts, and master classes at six PASICs (1985, 1987, 1989—which included her North American debut with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra—1991, 1994, and 1999), and attended others as “just another PAS member.” She served on the PAS Board of Directors (1994–99), and in 1994 she spoke at the Hall of Fame banquet in Atlanta and will do so again in Austin, this time as one of the honorees. “It’s important to take a moment to pause and reflect about what has been done in the past, where one is now, and where you want to be in the future,” says Evelyn. “It’s a personal time to reflect on the impact you might have on other people as well. I don’t know if age plays a part in it, because I feel as though I haven’t really achieved very much and there’s still so much to do!

I’m looking forward to the next 20-odd years.” Evelyn was named Scotswoman of the Decade in 1990 and Musical America’s Instrumentalist of the Year in 2003, to name a few of the 80-plus awards she has to her credit. She has received over 20 honorary doctorates from universities around the world, and in 2006 she was recognized with Sabian’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Evelyn Elizabeth Ann Glennie was born on July 19, 1965 in Aberdeen, Scotland, the youngest of three children and only daughter of farming parents. She began studying piano at age eight and two years later began to play clarinet. As her hearing began to deteriorate (Evelyn is profoundly deaf), she switched to percussion at age 12. The percussion teacher at her secondary school, Ellon Academy, decided to give Evelyn a chance. “Ron Forbes was a sensitive person and he had a great deal of patience with me,” she told Modern Drummer in a 1989 interview. While she was trying to tune timpani, he suggested she put her hands flat on the wall to feel the vibrations the tuned interval created.

“I could feel the vibrations in my hands and lower parts of my legs, so I got the pitch that way. I can also put my fingertips on the edge and feel it that way. There are countless ways of really hearing a particular instrument.” Evelyn adds that, over the years, “I have developed this technique to an immense degree.” Thanks to her perfect pitch and the fact that she performs barefoot (or in stocking feet), Evelyn “hears” the vibrations through her body. Together with her deft lip-reading skills, lilting Scottish accent, and amazing musicianship, she has conquered any preconceived notions of her impairment. It is also important to note that Evelyn does not consider herself a “deaf musician” (nor is the fact included in her concert programs) but rather a musician with a hearing impairment. (For more details on her views on hearing disabilities and how deafness has affected her, visit her Website, .) The New York Times has called Glennie “a musician, pure and simple” and stated that “her musicianship is extraordinary. One has to pause in sheer wonder at what she has accomplished.

She is quite simply a phenomenon of a performer.” At age 16, Evelyn auditioned for and was accepted by both the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music. She chose the Academy (RAM) and moved to London. There she studied with Nicholas Cole, Principal Percussionist with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and met James Blades. He encouraged her to explore new areas of percussion. In 1986, she traveled to Japan to study with Keiko Abe for a month. In 1984, during her second year at the Academy, Evelyn entered a national percussion competition and won the Gold Medal in the Shell/London Symphony Orchestra Music Scholarship. She also received the James Blades Prize twice—one year for timpani and the following year for percussion—as well as the Queen’s Commendation Prize for all-around excellence, both musically and academically. And just before graduation in the spring of 1985, at the age of 19, she performed “Concerto Palindromos” by Kenneth Dempster—the first percussion concerto performed at the Academy and her first commission.

During this time, Evelyn was also the subject of a BBC documentary, A Will To Win, and a Yorkshire TV documentary, Good Vibrations (also the title of her 1990 autobiography). The following year brought another documentary, The Glennie Determination by Radio 4, along with expanded national and international publicity. In 1987, Glennie was invited to join Sir George Solti, Murray Perahia, and timpanist David Corkhill for a tour featuring Bartók’s “Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion.” The piece was recorded by CBS Records and won a Grammy Award in 1989. She also appeared on Béla Fleck’s Perpetual Motion, which won the Grammy for Best Classical Crossover Album in 2001, and she has received two other Grammy nominations as well. She performed a Promenade recital at Kensington Town Hall in July 1989, the first percussion recital for that esteemed musical event, and later that year she recorded and released her first solo album, Rhythm Song. Evelyn was well on her way to earning her living as a solo percussionist.

Nearly two decades later, Evelyn has two dozen recordings to her credit, the most recent being The Sugar Factory with [guitarist] Fred Frith, taken from the film Touch the Sound. Evelyn describes the art-house film as “the explanation of sound.” The film is a sensory journey showcasing Evelyn performing in a variety of locations around the world. “It’s a hugely important tool. We just need to take our time to listen to the sounds around us. Listening is about being attentive and paying attention.” She has performed in over 40 countries on five continents, often giving more than 100 concerts a year. This year has been relatively calm with just six-dozen performances plus numerous speeches and other non-performing events. Evelyn has concertized with almost 200 different ensembles (not counting repeat visits to particular venues), including all the top-tier orchestras around the world. She used to travel with literally tons of equipment but now makes arrangements to have the instruments provided for her at each venue. Having spent years traveling with a full-time percussion tech, she is now assisted at different points along the way, usually to set up a new concerto receiving its first performance.

This past spring Evelyn added two new works to her repertoire of 120 concertos (56 of them written especially for her): “Conjurer” by John Corigliano and “Tongues of Fire” by Christos Hatzis (written for both Glennie and Hatzis’s wife, Canadian percussionist Beverly Johnston). “Conjurer” was co-commissioned by the Pittsburgh Symphony (where it received its world premiere on February 21, 2008), Nashville Symphony, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Gulbelkian Orchestra (Lisbon, Portugal), Dallas Symphony, and the National Arts Orchestra (Quebec, Canada). Originally called “Triple Play” for its three movements featuring wood, metal, and skin instruments, the title evolved into “Conjurer” after the first performance. “The conjurer is the soloist,” explained Corigliano during a backstage interview in Dallas, “and the pieces of wood, metal, and skin are objects that she brings to life through hitting, stroking, or bowing. They become magical.” “I asked John to write a concerto back in 1999,” Glennie recalls, “and it took nearly ten years for this project to happen.

We worked closely together through e-mail, and he flew to the UK to be in the studio with me before the first performance. He was also at all the rehearsals and performances we did in Pittsburgh and Nashville. That was invaluable. “It’s been a really good collaboration,” she says with a smile, and adds, “I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this particular commission!” Three weeks after her performance of the Corigliano concerto in Dallas on May 4, Evelyn played “Tongues of Fire” by Hatzis with the Vancouver (British Columbia) Symphony Orchestra, followed by concerts in Calgary (Alberta) the next week. “This is a very different piece of music,” she explains. Written for full orchestra, including percussion—the Corigliano is for strings only—it includes a recorded pop song, “Eternity’s Heartbeat,” in the same-named second movement as well as an improvisation between the soloist and concertmaster in the third movement. “It’s a completely different type of musical language,” elaborates Evelyn.

“It’s allowed me to experience some techniques that I don’t use very often, such as the bending of notes on vibraphone, which is very effective in the slow movement.” Since the piece was premiered by Beverly Johnston last year at the Scotia Festival of Music, Evelyn was able to bounce some ideas off another soloist. “Normally you don’t have that opportunity. I went through the piece and decided what the setup should be for my particular needs, and then had a chance to compare that setup with Bev. I have to travel with a piece, so I need to play the piece without duplicating instruments, otherwise it is more weight and expense. That was probably one of the main differences between our setups. But I still went through the piece as though it were the very first time it was performed. No matter how old the piece may be, if it’s the first time for me to perform a piece of music, then I have to view that work as a new composition.” In addition to being a performer, Evelyn is also a composer in her own right. “But I’m not a composer with a capital C,” she says with a smile.

“I write music for television, radio, and media purposes, which is a very different type of writing than for the concert platform. This allows me to use some of the unusual instruments in my collection [1,800 and counting!] that I may not necessarily travel with. It’s also a chance to collaborate with other people who might be more involved with the electronic side of things. But I think composing is a very valuable thing to do, and it really allows you to delve into sound and connect sound to imagery.” Branching out from music, Dame Evelyn is also a popular motivational speaker. The day before her Damehood investiture ceremony, she was in New York City as one of the keynote speakers at the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) 2008 International Conference. “I talked to them about how to listen,” she elaborates. “My whole profession as a musician is about listening and what it entails. I explained how I use listening as a professional musician and how they can use it within their work environment.” Another speech at the beginning of July was for the National Health Service in London and centered around her film, Touch the Sound. “We showed excerpts from the film and I spoke about the importance of sound,” Evelyn says.

”I try to let people know that it’s all around us; you have to pay attention and focus to digest that sound.” She recently spoke for Cambridgeshire Culture about the importance of music and the arts in education. The “empire” of Evelyn Glennie also includes a new line of jewelry, available through her Website. Performer, composer, motivational speaker, jewelry designer—and teacher. Evelyn has recently begun to take on a few students. “These are not just percussion students,” she emphasizes. “These are people who contact me for a specific reason. For example, somebody wants to know about the music business, or about agents and record companies. Another person is preparing for a competition or audition and he or she is working on certain pieces of music, so that would be a specific lesson. Others may simply want me to observe their repertoire.” Her fees vary depending on the topics and the number of lessons required. Does she have advice for young percussionists? “It’s important to grab on to any opportunity that comes your way,” Evelyn states emphatically, “but you also need to practice the art of creating your own opportunities. Do not get used to waiting for things to happen; the sooner that lesson is learned, the better.

You’re taking responsibility for your own actions, your own journey, and as a result of that, it’s so much more rewarding and the experience gained is far richer. “People told me, ‘You cannot be a solo percussionist’,” she recalls. “What would I play? Thanks to my journey over the last 20 years, there is now a body of repertoire to not only start a career more quickly but to sustain one. But that all stems from people saying, ‘No, it can’t happen.’ Once you believe in something, you know it’s absolutely possible to do.” Evelyn pauses before adding, “We can’t take for granted what we have, or what has been achieved. Things are moving so quickly in this business; it’s completely different than when I started. Every day is an opportunity to take a good look at what you’re doing. You can practice all you want to achieve a high level of playing, but if you let a month go by, it’s almost like you’ve lost five years. Every time we pick up our sticks we have to be better than the previous time we picked them up.” What does Evelyn consider her greatest accomplishments so far?

“The fact that a full-time solo percussionist did not exist before,” she modestly replies. “I don’t mean that in an egotistical way, but I was the first percussion concerto performer and recital soloist in the 100-plus year history of the Royal Academy of Music in London, and at the Prom concerts, too. These were high-profile performances that changed the perception of how people felt towards percussion. Every time you have an opportunity to perform, you’re planting the seed in someone else’s system. You’ve got to respect that and therefore give your best.” Dame Evelyn has certainly given her best to percussion and music around the world. “It’s important for people to think that I listened to my own voice and had a really good go at what I believed in,” she says. “At the end of the day, there are absolutely countless individuals who play these instruments superbly well, but that just isn’t enough. There has to be that something extra there that really does make the difference. And that particular ‘something’ cannot be described with words.” Contact Us: Evelyn Glennie Pictures and Biography Evelyn Glennie Most professional concert biographies are essentially CV's in prose form. Trying to create a biography of this type for Evelyn is virtually impossible.

Listing only the top class orchestras and conductors with whom Evelyn has performed, the awards and the famous concert venues, would result in a biography consisting of too many pages to be practical. Our solution in the past has been to list only a few items. This results in a biography that barely scratches the surface and has varying degrees of relevance depending on the country in which it is published. In an attempt to help solve this problem we have come up with a new concept, the "Mix & Match Biography". Below is the basic outline of a biography which explains the background of Evelyn's career. Please feel free to edit this document and add whichever details you feel are applicable from the "Details" panel. You may also want to include other items from pages found in the "Documents" section, the Awards or Commissions for example. Please note the lists of orchestras, venues and conductors with whom Evelyn has appeared are not yet complete. Finally, a personal request from Evelyn. When editing the biography please don't mention Evelyn's hearing. Please refer to the Hearing Essay and the Disability Speech to understand the reasons why. Every area of human endeavour has it's stars. Highly talented champions who contribute to the popularisation of their chosen field.

However, once in a while someone is born with such great talent and power of personality that they exist beyond the bounds of the times in which they live. These exceedingly rare individuals not only popularise and dominate their field of endeavour, they actually redefine it. They cause the rest of us to re-evaluate our concept of the impossible. Within her field of endeavour Evelyn Glennie is such a person. To individually list all of Evelyn's awards and achievements is not only impossible but a pointless exercise. For the first ten years of her career virtually every performance Evelyn gave was in some way a first. The first time an orchestra had performed with a percussion soloist, the first solo percussion performance at a venue or festival or the world premiere of a new percussion concerto. Evelyn gives more than 100 performances a year all over the world to universal critical acclaim from the toughest of reviewers in many of the world's most esteemed publications. The fact that Evelyn has performed with virtually all of the world's finest orchestras and greatest conductors in the most famous concert halls only proves that Evelyn is one of the world's top international concert soloists and the most in demand solo percussionist in the world.

What takes Evelyn a step beyond the ranks of the elite is that she combines her superb technical abilities, a profound appreciation of the visual elements of percussion along with her astonishing musicality to create performances of such stunning vitality that they almost constitute a new type of performance. To this end Evelyn has commissioned over ninety new works for solo percussion from many of the world's most talented composers. Despite all the advice to the contrary, Evelyn is not only the first person to successfully create and sustain a full-time career as a solo percussionist in the history of classical music but is redefining the goals and expectations of percussion students, orchestras, concert promoters and the general public the world over. Evelyn's recording career has been as illustrious as her performing career. Evelyn's first CD, a recording of Bartok's "Sonata for two Pianos and Percussion" won her a Grammy in 1988. Rather than an ambition achieved, winning the most highly regarded recording prize in the world was only the first step for Evelyn. Subsequent solo recordings have earned a further two Grammy nominations, a Classic CD Award and great critical acclaim.

Evelyn's twelfth solo CD, Shadow Behind the Iron Sun (BMG Records) was based on a radical concept and has once again questioned people's expectations. Despite working a relentless schedule Evelyn is in constant demand to release new recordings, her thirteenth and most recent disc was released in late 2000. Outside of actual performance Evelyn excels in everything to which she turns her hand. From writing a bestselling autobiography, Good Vibrations, to hosting two series of her own television programs for the BBC. More recently, Evelyn has teamed up with Greg Malcangi, to compose, record and produce music for film and television. As in her performance career, Evelyn has already made a significant impact. Evelyn and Greg's first foray into the area of TV commercials resulted in such innovative music that it was subsequently paraphrased by others. Their first high quality drama produced a score so original they were nominated for a British Academy of Film and Television Arts award; the UK equivalent of the Oscars. Evelyn Glennie has already achieved virtually every accolade or ambition of which any aspiring musician could possibly dream. Talking with Evelyn, either privately or on air, is a humbling experience.

Seeing how unaffected she is by her amazing accomplishments is enough to make you question your understanding of what is possible. Evelyn herself though, feels she has barely scratched the surface. She is still full of drive and enthusiasm and is brimming with ideas to improve the experience for the audience and redefine the very format of live performance itself. Evelyn's website. Evelyn Glennie EVELYN GLENNIE by Stan Griffin Graphics by Heather Peck Profoundly deaf since the age of 12, Evelyn Glennie refused to accept rejection of her desire to become a solo percussionist. She continued to follow her dream; and today she is recognized as the first classically trained solo percussionist, one of the finest in the worl d. Evelyn was born in northeast Scotland on her family's farm, about 20 miles from the city of Aberdeen. She was the youngest of three children and the only girl. Evelyn attended a small rural elementary school close to her home. Later she was a student at a secondary school about nine miles away. Her mother played the church organ; and every Christmas, her father got out his accordian.

There was no phonograph in the Glennie house, so Evelyn's interest in music had to come from outside sources. She was not influenced by any particular type of music. As she put it: "I ... followed my own instincts... (learned by) playing and reading scores ..." Evelyn began taking piano lessons at age eight, and her teacher soon discovered that she had perfect pitch. Later that same year, she began to notice that her hearing was gradually failing. This loss continued for the next four years. Doctors finally diagnosed the cause as nerve damage. Once Evelyn's interest in music was firmly established, even diminished hearing couldn't discourage her. By the age of 12, when she began working with percussion instruments, her loss was almost complete. (She does have some residual hearing.) However, she simply refused to worry about it! She said, "Deafness was part of me...it developed in a natural way..." Evelyn was fitted with a hearing aid, but she discarded it because it "distorted sound" and was a "distraction." She learned to lipread and has functioned well without aids ever since, although she says today that she believes in "total communication" for the deaf.

She has no trouble speaking, partly because of her perfect pitch. Evelyn gives much credit to her elementary school teachers for encouraging her to pursue her goal of a musical career. She first learned to recognize high notes and low notes by placing her hands on the outside wall of the music room while a teacher inside performed. Some of the notes made her fingers tingle, while others were felt all the way down to her wrists. One day she saw a classmate playing percussion instruments. Her interest was roused, and she asked for lessons. After a few days, Evelyn said that it just "felt right" for her. There are more percussion instruments than any other type, and some of them are among the oldest in the world. The percussion section of a band or orchestra is often called the "kitchen," or the "kitchen sink department"; a percussionist is sometimes called a "jack of all trades" because of the large number of available instruments. The word itself is defined as any musical instrument in which sound is produced by: striking; hitting; scraping; or shaking. Only the hands are used with some of them, but others require a stick or mallet.

Some examples of percussion implements follow: (1) drums of all kinds; (2) cymbals (struck against each other); (3) xylophone, marimba, glockenspiel (struck with mallet); (4) tambourines, bells, castanets (shaken); (5) triangle, chimes (struck). The purpose of percussion instruments is to provide color and texture to the music coming from an orchestra while highlighting its rhythm. By the time she had completed secondary school, Evelyn came to see that her deafness would not allow her to participate fully within an orchestra. So she began consider a future as a solo performer on percussion. To that end, Evelyn applied for admission to London's Royal Academy of Music. Teachers there were skeptical of the possibility that she could succeed. She was forced to go through TWO auditions, each with a separate set of faculty panelists to judge her abilities. She convinced them that she could function at a high level with percussion, despite her hearing deficiencies; and she successfully completed her studies in three years. After graduating with honors, Evelyn gave a number of recitals and concerts in Great Britain.

She spent a year in Japan, studying the five-octave marimba. (Her seventh CD was made up entirely of music by Japanese composers.) Currently she gives over 100 concerts a year. She also writes music for British television: commercial jingles, theme songs, and documentary backgrounds. Evelyn has recorded a large number of songs, some of which she composed herself. She won a "Grammy" (award for recordings) for her version of Bartok's "Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion." Evelyn was chosen "Scotswoman of the Year" in 1989. She is also an author. Her book, "Good Vibrations," was a best-seller in Great Britain. When Evelyn "takes on" a new selection, she uses some unusual techniques. She has been known to play a recorded version of the song on a stereo while she "hugs" the speakers. She sometimes uses a tape recorder which she places between her knees as the music flows. During a performance, Evelyn has as many as 50 instruments in front of her. She frequently removes her shoes so she can "feel" the music through her lower body as well as through her hands.

She identifies notes by their different vibrations. Reverberations from the stage on which her feet rest also assist her. In 1994 Evelyn married Greg Malcangi, a recording engineer, who has normal hearing. They live in a house north of London. A barn on their property houses approximately 600 percussion instruments that Evelyn has collected. She is constantly finding new ones, some very uncommon (flower pots, calf bones, parts of autos). When Evelyn decides to master a new instrument, it takes more time than a hearing person might need; but when her very thorough learning process is completed, it has become a "part of her." In March of this year, Evelyn made her debut with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra at Lincoln Center. The "New York Times" review said in part: "Ms. Glennie is...a phenomenon as a performer ... and the fact that she is ... deaf is the least of it." She is president of the "Beethoven Fund," an organization based in London. It is a charity that provides music-based treatment for hearing-impaired children.

Glennie believes that music may be an effective way to link them to the outside world, Musical sounds seem to be easier for them to pick up and to identify; at times they are the only ones. She strongly disagrees with individuals or groups who attempt to discourage the deaf from listening to music or taking a more active part. How does Evelyn evaluate her success in life? This quote from her gives us some insight: "I'm not a deaf musician. I'm a musician who happens to be deaf." Evelyn Glennie (percussion) on CD, SACD, DVD & download (MP3 & FLAC) - Buy online from Presto Classical (also available to download from $10.00) Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. (Available now to download.) Touch The Sound - Evelyn Glennie Improvised and performed by Evelyn Glennie & Fred Frith Award-winning director and cinematographer,Thomas Riedelsheimer (director of the acclaimed Rivers and Tides), takes us on a journey through a universe of sound with percussionist Evelyn Glennie. While exploring the role of deafness in Glennie’s music-making, Touch the Sound challenges our understanding of the senses and celebrates Glennie’s uncanny gifts.

Believed to be the first full-time solo percussionist in the West, Dame Evelyn Glennie has performed with nearly all of the world's major orchestras in front of several presidents and world leaders. In concert, she plays up to 60 instruments including the gamelan, xylophone, marimba and timpani. Outside percussion, she is also adept on the great highland bagpipes. On stage, the percussionist performs barefoot in order to feel vibrations from her instruments, and often stands at 90 degrees to the audience so they can see the drum skins vibrating. Her personal collection includes 1,800 instruments, several of which Glennie designed herself, and she keeps percussion kits in six countries to facilitate her hectic touring schedule. Outside the world of classical music, Glennie has achieved fame for her collaborations with artists including Sting, Ray Davies, Fred Frith and Bjork. She is the vice-president of Hearing Concern and Deafness Research UK, and president of The Beethoven Fund for Deaf Children, which provides musical therapy units to schools for the deaf and partially-hearing across the UK.

Evelyn's activities also include lobbying the Government on political issues; her consortium with Sir James Galway, Julian Lloyd Webber and the late Michael Kamen successfully led to the government providing £332 million towards music education. “A feast for the senses.” New York Daily News “Beautifully shot and filled with gorgeous music.” Chicago Tribune “Rewarding, thought-provoking and subtly visceral.” Hollywood Reporter “Potent and Imaginative!” Los Angeles Times “Glennie… is a remarkable musician by any measure. Working with the legendary improviser Fred Frith, she proves exceptionally open to the experience of sound itself, not just its organisation into tunes, chords and rhythms. Few classical (or, for that matter, jazz or pop) musicians have the kind of imagination or awareness she and Frith display.

Visually, the film is superb, beginning with a bravura coup de cinema: the camera pulls away from a close-up of a gong, Glennie steps in to play, and the camera continues to back rapidly through a huge deserted warehouse until, outside, it pans up to a thundery sky.” BBC Music Magazine, November 2009 ***** Region: 0 Evelyn Glennie - Biography - IMDb Evelyn Glennie Jump to: Overview (2) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (1) | Trivia (7) | Personal Quotes (1) Overview (2) Evelyn Elizabeth Ann Glennie Mini Bio (1) Dame Evelyn Glennie, who was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2007 New Year Honours List, is one of the best-known figures in contemporary British music. An extraordinarily virtuosic percussionist as well as an engaging personality, she has long been subject to considerable media interest. Touring internationally with her huge array of instruments (the world's first full-time classical percussion soloist), she has played with all the world's major orchestras, consistently winning massive critical acclaim.

Her sixteen solo albums (including twelve on the RCA/BMG label) have reached a remarkably diverse public, as have her numerous collaborations with musicians from the non-classical world. She has performed with Indian, Indonesian and South American traditional musicians, and in the mid-'90s co-wrote and recorded several songs with the Icelandic singer Björk, including the hit single My Spine. Her 2000 solo album Shadow Behind the Iron Sun, produced by acclaimed rock music producer Michael Brauer, entirely comprises studio improvisations by Evelyn. In addition to her life as a performer and recording artist, Evelyn has established for herself a considerable reputation as a composer for film and television. One of her earliest credits was her music for a series of Tony Kaye-directed TV commercials for Mazda Cars in the mid-'90s - which was so original that it spawned a host of imitations. She was nominated for a BAFTA Award for her music for the first series of Lynda La Plante's ground-breaking crime drama Trial & Retribution (La Plante Productions for ITV), and has gone on to record many subsequent series of the show.

Other drama credits include two four-hour versions of Bramwell (Whitby Davison Productions for ITV); and Blind Ambition (Coastal Productions/Yorkshire Television). Documentary credits include 3BM TV's 4-part study of the history of terrorism, The Age of Terror, produced by Oscar-winning producer Jon Blair and transmitted on the Discovery Channel to coincide with the first anniversary of the September 11th outrage. She also composed the title music for two series of the BBC's Soundbites, which she herself presented. In 1999 Evelyn scored her first feature film, The Trench, a First World War drama written and directed by the novelist William Boyd. In 2004 Evelyn collaborated with the film-maker Thomas Riedelsheimer on his film Touch the Sound. Described as "A Sound Journey With Evelyn Glennie", the film explores the phenomenon of sound as Evelyn experiences it, in her life and work, and contains much original music by Evelyn, some co-written with the renowned guitarist Fred Frith. The soundtrack has been released by Normal Records.

Evelyn has created a number of tracks for the library music company Audio Network PLC - IMDb Mini Biography By: Media@fabermusic.com Spouse (1) BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Evelyn Glennie's good vibrations Evelyn Glennie's good vibrations Glennie has received more than 70 international awards Evelyn Glennie, who has become a dame in the New Year Honours, is one of the world's most celebrated percussionists. Born in Aberdeen on 19 July, 1965, she studied music from the age of 12, by which time she was profoundly deaf. Undeterred, Glennie - who experiences music by absorbing vibrations - won a place at the Royal Academy of Music in London where she later became a fellow. A gifted composer and performer, she has won two Grammy awards and was made an OBE in 1993. She made her debut as a percussionist at the Wigmore Hall in 1986, and now performs up to 100 concerts a year, as well as giving masterclasses and motivational speeches.

Multi-instrumentalist Believed to be the first full-time solo percussionist in the West, Glennie has performed with nearly all of the world's major orchestras in front of several presidents and world leaders. Glennie presented the Sound Bites series for the BBC In concert, she plays up to 60 instruments including the gamelan, xylophone, marimba and timpani. Outside percussion, she is also adept on the great highland bagpipes. Her personal collection includes 1,800 instruments, several of which Glennie designed herself, and she keeps percussion kits in six countries to facilitate her hectic touring schedule. Outside the world of classical music, Glennie has achieved fame for her collaborations with pop and rock artists including Sting, Ray Davies and Bjork. Her own compositions have also received acclaim, and she received a Bafta nomination for the soundtrack to the TV series Trial and Retribution in 1997. She has also appeared as a presenter on two series of the BBC documentary programme Sound Bites. Charity work Glennie is reluctant to speak about her loss of hearing, and says she regards herself as a normal person.

"My hearing is out of the ordinary as others might see it, but not for me," she writes on her website. "I'm used to my hearing in the same way that I'm used to the size of my hands." On stage, the percussionist performs barefoot in order to feel vibrations from her instruments, and often stands at 90 degrees to the audience so they can see the drum skins vibrating. She is the vice-president of Hearing Concern and Deafness Research UK, and president of The Beethoven Fund for Deaf Children, which provides musical therapy units to schools for the deaf and partially-hearing across the UK. Glennie said she was surprised and delighted with her honour. "I hope the seeds I have sown will be taken up by those who will follow me because the journey I have begun cannot be undertaken in isolation," she added.

"There is much I still aspire to achieve and as with all awards of recognition, this gives me the impetus to continue to try to make a difference on a global scale throughout my many fields of interest and activity." Evelyn Glennie Biography Evelyn Glennie Biography Find Evelyn Glennie on Amazon.com Born Evelyn Elizabeth Ann Glennie on July 19, 1965, in Aberdeen, Scotland; married Greg Malcagni, 1994. Addresses: U.S. Agent--ICM Artists, 8942 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, CA 90211, phone: (310) 550-4477. Website--Evelyn Glennie Official Website, Evelyn Glennie is considered one of the world's foremost percussionists and is the first and only full-time solo classical percussionist. The master of more than 1,000 traditional and unconventional percussion instruments from around the world has performed with a range of musical talents, from the Kodo Japanese drummers to Icelandic pop singer Björk, and with every major orchestra in America and Europe.

Profoundly deaf (meaning severely impaired but not completely deaf) since the age of 12, the percussionist identifies notes by vibrations she feels through her feet and body; she insists her deafness is irrelevant to her ground-breaking, critically acclaimed work. Evelyn Elizabeth Ann Glennie was born July 19, 1965, the only daughter of Isobel, a school teacher, and Herbert Arthur Glennie, a beef farmer. Raised outside Aberdeen, Scotland, Glennie and her two brothers helped on the family farm and, though her mother was an organist, didn't grow up in a particularly musical environment. She was a promising student of piano and clarinet as a child, and she was blessed with perfect pitch, the ability to identify or sing a note by ear. At age eight, Glennie started complaining of sore ears and hearing loss. Her condition steadily deteriorated, and by age 11 she needed a hearing aid, which she found distracting and later discarded. She continued to play music and found she could perceive the quality of a note by the level of the reverberations she could feel in her hands, wrists, lower body, and feet.

Glennie counts as her major influences cellist Jacqueline du Pré and pianist Glenn Gould. Percussion "Felt Right" When she was 12, Glennie saw a schoolmate playing percussion. She started taking lessons, and, she told People, "... it felt right." She graduated with honors from London's prestigious Royal Academy of Music in 1985. She claims her deafness kept her from being caught up by social distractions and made her a better student, but she also realized it affected her ability to play in an orchestra, so she set her sights on becoming a soloist. In 1985 she made her professional debut; the following year she left for Japan to study the five-octave marimba for a year. Glennie's first decade as a professional solo performer was filled with milestones: first performance of a new percussion concerto, first time an orchestra had performed with a solo percussionist, first solo percussion performance at a festival or venue. In 1990 she met Greg Malcagni, a recording engineer, and the two wed four years later.

Glennie introduced her rendition of fellow Scot James MacMillan's Veni, Veni, Emmanual--described by Billboard as "a devoutly celestial concerto"--at London's Royal Albert Hall in 1992. She released a recording of the work the following year. In 1996 Glennie released Drumming, which she described to Billboard as "quite a personal album." She wanted to make a "raw, ... improvised" album using untuned percussion. Billboard critic Timothy White called her playing on the record "breathtakingly instinctive." Glennie's twelfth solo release, Shadow Behind the Iron Sun,was released in 2000 and recorded under unusual circumstances. She and veteran pop producer Michael Brauer spent four days in a studio packed with every instrument Glennie played, exploring as many moods as possible, from dark and aggressive to light and happy. The improvised songs, which were all recorded on the first take, were titled after chapters in Eaters of the Dead,a Michael Crichton novel that Brauer was reading at the time.

"With this project, there were no boundaries, no rules, no limits," Glennie was quoted as saying on her website, adding it was her favorite record so far. African Sunrise/Manhattan Rave, released in 2001 on Black Box Records, is a work by British composer David Heath that Glennie and the London Philharmonic Orchestra bring to life. On "Manhattan Rave," Glennie literally plays on trash (an assortment of sticks, oilcans, and bottles and pans) and "does her best percussion freakout. It truly is an amazing work, capable of raising the dead while remaining somehow 'accessible,'" according to All Music Guide's Thom Jurek. Master of Timpani, Xylophone, Car Muffler While countless pieces of music have been composed for the piano, violin, flute, or cello, few works have been written for percussion. In an effort to change that, Glennie has commissioned more than 80 new pieces to date, with projects constantly in the works. She actively pursues new composers and commissions more new pieces, on average, than any other solo performer.

Glennie has collected more than 1,000 percussion instruments, and there seems to be no end to what she is able to make music with. She is a master of common percussion instruments from around the world--marimba, xylophone, timpani, chimes, congas, steel pan, djembes, bodhrans, daiko drums, and many more. But she is also wildly inventive. She creates instruments herself, like an adapted car muffler she strikes with triangle beaters. She also has made music on common items such as a hospital bed, camera, wheel hub, garbage can lid, flower pot, and starting gun. Composer Django Bates wrote a piece for Glennie, which she played only with kitchen utensils, called "My Dream Kitchen." She designed a line of cymbals for cymbal company Sabian called "Glennie's Garbage" that are welded from sheet metal. Glennie, who played clarinet as a child, also began to add wind instruments to her repertoire, starting with Great Highland bagpipes. Glennie tours extensively and exhaustively. She plays more than 100 concerts each year and has appeared across five continents.

She plays on 20 to 50 instruments during each performance, "bounding," as Michael Walsch wrote in Time, "from instrument to instrument with the grace of a natural athlete." A Washington Post critic was almost as impressed by Glennie's physical show in concert--which he called the "Evelyn Glennie Workout"--as he was by "the subtle gradations of sound and color she brings to every phrase." In addition to the details of her music and instruments, Glennie pays attention to the non-musical details of her shows, performing in colorful, theatrical costumes and with thematically designed sets and lights. Because she feels the music through her feet, she prefers to play barefoot. In addition to about two tons of equipment, Glennie travels with her Gameboy video game player. Did Not Want to Hear about Hearing In addition to performing, Glennie and her husband have composed award-winning music for British film and television. She also hosted two series of her own television programs for the BBC, including one called Soundbites, which featured interviews and performances by musical guests. She has written two books for the marimba and a music education book for schools.

Her best-selling autobiography, Good Vibrations, was published in 1985. Glennie believes that her hearing impairment has no bearing on her position as a world-renowned percussionist, and she is reluctant to discuss the subject with interviewers. Although she is active in some 40 organizations for the deaf, such as a program that provides music-based therapy for hearing-impaired children, Glennie downplays her involvement, preferring to concentrate on elevating the art of percussion.

She has achieved her goal, according to Symphony magazine: "Glennie is the one individual most responsible for the sudden emergence of percussion from the rear of the orchestra to front-and-center stage, both in fact and in public attention." by Brenna Sanchez Evelyn Glennie's Career Musically gifted from an early age; profoundly deaf by age 12, when she began playing percussion; graduated from London's Royal Academy of Music, 1985; debuted professionally as world's first full-time solo classical percussionist, 1985; recorded numerous solo albums for RCA/BMG including MacMillan: Veni, Veni, Emmanual; Wind in the Bamboo Grove; Drumming; Her Greatest Hits; and Shadow Behind the Iron Sun; has performed with many of the world's best orchestras.

Evelyn Glennie's Awards Scot of the Year, 1982; Hilda Deane Anderson Prize for Orchestral Playing, 1983; Hugh Fitz Prize for Percussion, 1983; James Blades Prize for Timpani & Percussion, 1984; Queen's Commendation Prize for all-around excellence, 1985; Leonardo da Vinci Prize, 1987; Associate of the Royal Academy of Music, 1987; All Music Young Professional Musician of the Year, 1988; Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance for Bartok's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, 1988; Royal Philharmonic Society's Charles Heidsieck Soloist of the Year Award, 1991; Best Classical Percussionist, Modern Drummer magazine readers' poll, 1990; Scotswoman of the Decade, 1990; the Gulliver Award for the Performing Arts in Scotland, 1993; OBE (Order of the British Empire), 1993; Young Deaf Achievers Special Award, 1993;

 International Classical Music Awards Personality of the Year, 1993; Outstanding Individual Award, Alexander Graham Bell Association, 1997; Percussionist of the Year Award, DRUM magazine, 1998; Best Studio Percussionist and Best Live Percussionist awards, Rhythm magazine, 1998, 2000; numerous other awards, scholarships, fellowships, and honorary doctorates.

Famous Works Hi I am also doing my school project on yuo. You lead an interesting life. almost 9 years ago hi i enjoyed reading about you its very intresting ... i have decsided to do my school mucic project on you! :) almost 9 years ago Dear Evelyn, I enjoy reading about your musical success. I have cherished memories of you and James Blades when you came to Rochester and performed at NTID/RIT in the early years of your career, and then seeing you perform with the RPO a few years later. I hope you will return to Rochester for another performance in the near future. Wishing you a happy and successful 2008. Sincerely,Bob Mowers Copyright © 2017 Net Industries - All Rights Reserved Musicians with Hearing Loss By Jamie Berke Updated July 06, 2016 It is not unusual for musicians to spend hours practicing their craft and being exposed to high levels of noise - often resulting in hearing loss or tinnitus (or both). With no hearing protection (or inadequate hearing protection), hearing loss is a natural result of damage to the ear. Let's take a look at some popular musicians who have spoken out about their hearing losses.

Eric Clapton has hearing loss and tinnitus The guitarist Eric Clapton, also known by the nickname "Slowhand", suffers from both hearing loss and tinnitus. Since his roles in the bands Cream, The Yardbirds, and Derek and the Dominos, Clapton has been a three-time inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and has won eighteen Grammy awards. He had a reputation for turning his amp "up to 11", which means always playing at the maximum possible volume. This constant exposure to loud noise, especially in smaller studio spaces, lead to a permanent hearing loss. Ozzy Osbourne has tinnitus John Michael "Ozzy" Osbourne is best known for his membership in the heavy metal group Black Sabbath. Like Clapton, he also suffers from tinnitus . Osbourne opened up to the Sunday Times of London about his condition: "I suffer from permanent tinnitus . . . which means I've got this constant ringing in my ears, which has also made me somewhat deaf (or 'conveniently deaf,' as Sharon [Osbourne, his wife] calls it). It's like this Whee! noise in my head all the time.

Should have worn earplugs, I guess." As well as performing with Black Sabbath, Osbourne also recorded music on his own starting in 1978. He was also a reality television star on the show The Osbournes, featuring a large part of the musician's family, from 2002 until 2005. Chris Martin has tinnitus The frontman of the British alternative rock band Coldplay is yet another musician who suffers from tinnitus. Like Ozzy Osbourne, he has spoken out about his own condition: "I've had tinnitus for about 10 years, and since I started protecting my ears it hasn't got any worse—touch wood. Looking after your ears is, unfortunately, something you don't think about until there's a problem. I wish I'd thought about it earlier." Coldplay released the album A Head Full of Dreams in December of 2015, and Martin plans to contribute a track to an album called "I am the One in Ten". The album aims to spread awareness about the number of people in the United Kingdom estimated to have tinnitus and benefit the British Tinnitus Association.

Evelyn Glennie is deaf Evelyn Glennie is perhaps the best known deaf musician internationally. Glennie, an award-winning percussionist, has performed almost everywhere and has her own website. She has even released albums. On the official Evelyn Glennie website , she offers samples of her music and video clips, her concert schedules, an online newsletter, a photo gallery, and even a scholarship for hearing impaired students studying music. A well-known cochlear implant recipient, Caitlin Parton, was one of the Glennie scholarship winners. There has been enough amazement on the part of reporters that a musician could be deaf, that Glennie was compelled to add an essay on her hearing loss by her husband to her website. There is no mention of her hearing loss in the press pack, the press cuttings,or her biography on the site. The remainder of the site offers information on various products associated with Glennie. Sources: Deaf Percussionist Evelyn Glennie Collaborates With Pro Musica Nipponia At UI Feb.

16 - University News Service - The University of Iowa Release: Immediate Deaf percussionist Evelyn Glennie collaborates with Pro Musica Nipponia at UI IOWA CITY, Iowa -- Japan's traditional-instrument orchestra, Pro Musica Nipponia, will be joined by superstar Scottish percussionist Evelyn Glennie in a musical meeting of East and West at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 16 in Hancher Auditorium on the University of Iowa campus. The concert will be presented in conjunction with the Days of Percussion, hosted by the UI School of Music. Glennie has achieved international fame both because she is a dramatic percussion virtuoso -- proclaimed the "First Lady" of solo percussion -- and because she is deaf. She literally sees and feels the music, responding to conductors and other musicians by sight, while feeling the vibrations of the music. Glennie will offer a percussion master class -- open for public observation, free of charge, at 1 p.m. the day of the concert in the Opera Rehearsal Room in the Voxman Music Building.

The centerpiece of the concert will be "Requiem 99," a concerto for marimba and Japanese traditional instruments by Minoru Miki, founder and director of Pro Musical Nipponia. Miki will personally introduce the work. Also on the program will be another marimba concerto and performances by Pro Musica Nipponia of both traditional and contemporary works for Japanese traditional instruments. Pro Musica Nipponia was formed in 1964 to perform both classical and modern music for traditional stringed instruments including the koto, the shamisen and the biwa; wind instruments including the shakuhachi, shinobue and nokan; and percussion instruments including the odaiko, shimedaiko and kotsuzumi. Miki has long pursued his interest in cross-cultural collaborations. In 1981 he composed the "Symphony for Two Worlds," which Pro Musica Nipponia performed with the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig, under the direction of Kurt Masur. Masur also directed the American premiere of the work in 1994 with the New York Philharmonic.

That performance was followed by a national tour, supported by the Japan Foundation, which included a performance in Hancher featuring a commissioned work by Miki. Glennie was trained at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where she received the school's highest honor. Although her deafness attracted publicity, her career quickly proved that she was more than a novelty. In Europe she almost single-handedly popularized percussion music and established the timpani and other percussion as solo-concert instruments. She has performed with leading orchestras worldwide, has toured performing solo and chamber music concerts, and has appeared as a host and performer on television and radio broadcasts worldwide. Several of her recordings on the RCA Red Seal label have become bestsellers. She was bestowed as Officer of the British Empire in 1993. Glennie began to lose her hearing when she was eight years old. "I suffered from sore ears," she told the Detroit News. "The wind particularly bothered my ears. Gradually I began to realize that I was having to pay more attention; I was not catching everything people said to me and popping the TV up louder.

My headmistress at the elementary school spoke to my parents about this, and we went to an audiologist, and in fact things weren't what they should have been. "My hearing kept narrowing, but I was lucky because I was still a child. Other people assume you'll have problems -- and sometimes even create them. But a child who falls off a bicycle just picks himself up and goes on to the next thing." The hearing loss became profound, but stabilized by the age of 12. "My family is unfussy and down to earth, and they do not make an issue out of anything," she said. "We just got on with it. The closest school for the deaf was away in Aberdeen, and there was simply no question of my going away to someplace like that. I had my teen-age years to adapt to the situation and build my confidence." Glennie gave up the clarinet, but at a school assembly she discovered percussion, which suited the heightening sensitivity of her other senses. While no one ever discouraged her musical interests, she at first did not consider a musical career. The discouragement came later, with her choice of a solo career on an instrument for which there was no precedent.

"I spent three years at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and I played in the orchestra, which was a requirement, but by the time I was 15, I had decided that I wanted to be a musician if I could be a soloist, but if I couldn't do that, I would go on to something else. This was a very different idea at the time, and it did create some resistance." After researching the existing literature for percussion, she made her solo debut in 1986 at Wigmore Hall in London. Once the media began spreading the word of her unusual talents, composers began creating new pieces specifically for her. She now presents more than 100 concerts each season. Glennie is an active advocate for the deaf, and her own career has shattered many prejudices. "People like to imagine that deafness is about silence and music is about sound," she said. "But it isn't that way at all. Deaf people can experience music as a visual and a physical sensation, and there are many aspects of music that aren't just sound. Trying to bring all of this together is important to me; that's what I want to do." She has traveled the world acquiring new percussion instruments, and experimenting with technique.

"And I have my husband to tell me what it sounds like after I have struck it," she observed. But her interests are not confined to percussion. She now hopes to learn that most Scottish of all instruments -- the bagpipe. Corporate sponsors of Pro Musica Nipponia with Evelyn Glennie are Prairie Lights and the Iowa City Coffee Company through the University of Iowa Foundation. Tickets for the Feb. 16 concert are $18, $16 and $14. UI students and senior citizens qualify for a 20-percent discount, with Zone 3 tickets available to UI students for $10. Tickets for audience members 17 and younger are half price. Hancher box office hours are 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. weekdays, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday and 1-3 p.m. Sunday. From the local calling area or outside Iowa, dial (319) 335-1160. Long distance within Iowa and western Illinois is toll-free, 1-800-HANCHER. Fax to (319) 353-2284.

Orders may be charged to VISA, MasterCard or American Express. UI students may charge their purchases to their university bills, and UI faculty and staff may select the option of payroll deduction. People with special needs for access, seating and auxiliary services should dial (319) 335-1158. This number will be answered by box office personnel prepared to offer assistance with handicapped parking, wheelchair access and seating, hearing augmentation and other services. The line is equipped with TDD for people with hearing impairment who use that technology. For additional information about the Days of Percussion, contact Dan Moore at the UI School of Music, 319-335-1632 For information on UI arts events, visit ~uiowacr/ on the World Wide Web. Visit Evelyn Glennie's homepage at . 1/29/99

Question: Evelyn Glennie achieved musical fame as what type of musician?
Answer: PERCUSSIONIST