Good vibrations
The fairy-tale career of the world’s first, fulltime solo percussionist, Evelyn Glennie, who also happens to be deaf
Good vibrations
It’s a musical fairy tale that could outsell many a Hollywood blockbuster, but the story of a beautiful Scottish girl who grows up profoundly deaf and becomes one of classical music’s most recognised stage performers also happens to be true
words: jeremy taylor
photography: james wilson/eg images
VIRTUOSO PERCUSSIONIST EVELYN Glennie was the world’s first, full-time solo percussionist. Her barefoot stage performances receive standing ovations from enthralled fans and she consistently plays to packed concert halls around the globe. Since her first professional performance 20 years ago, Glennie, 41, has picked up a string of major awards and gone on to single-handedly expand the short repertoire of works available for percussionists. And as it happens, she has received enormous, although not always welcome, media attention because of her deafness. But it is her adventurous playing skills and boundless enthusiasm that have wowed audiences wherever she’s played. After picking up an American Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance in 1988, she now gives more than 100 performances a year and headlines with major international orchestras.
“I really enjoy what I do and I’m always finding new and exciting instruments to play, however unusual. There are so many things left that I would like to achieve,” she explains.
Glennie’s parents were farmers and she grew up in a relatively isolated spot near Aberdeen, in Scotland. The remote setting of her childhood was imbued with strong musical tradition, mixed with her first language, Doric, a dialect which developed in parts of Scotland where Gaelic was formerly spoken. While her father played the accordion in a Scottish country dance band, the young Evelyn was encouraged to try the church organ and clarinet. “We had a piano on the farm and I started formal lessons when I was eight.
“I didn’t take up a percussion instrument until I went to secondary school [Ellon Academy], which was about 12 miles from my home. The school orchestra played at assembly and watching other children play timpani encouraged me to have a go.”
Glennie was also a singer and had perfect pitch. This also helped when doctors realised the youngster was starting to lose her hearing. By the age of 12 she was profoundly deaf, which means she has some very limited hearing.
Far from inhibiting her musical progress, the pupil’s percussion skills blossomed. With the help of a music teacher she was able to ‘hear’ music through vibrations from the instrument, aided by her perfect pitch. It soon became clear that to further her career, Glennie would have to move away to study.
Places at the prestigious Royal Academy of Music in London are few and far between and there were no favours for a profoundly deaf 16-year-old from Scotland. Glennie had to perform not one but two auditions to prove her worth and join the musical elite. “It might seem odd but I can’t actually remember when I gave my first solo percussion performance. I was always used to performing in front of people and it probably happened when I was at the Academy.”
The Grammy Award for her recording of composer Béla Bartók’s Sonata for two pianos and percussion [with David Corkhill, Murray Perahia and Georg Solti] was a major turning point in her career. She was made an OBE five years later, aged just 27, although the title is rarely bestowed on anybody under the age of 50.
Glennie’s autobiography, Good Vibrations, also proved a hit and along the way she has also collected 15 honorary doctorates from British universities. While she has also won the ‘Scotswoman of the Decade’ title, Glennie is happier to reveal she can play the Great Highland bagpipes. “I wouldn’t class myself as a proper piper but I do use the bagpipes in some of my performances. It’s a really amazing instrument.”
It’s the kind of musical diversity which is typical of her playing. How many performers can say they have worked with the Japanese Kodo drummers, Brazilian samba bands, classical orchestras and Icelandic pop star Björk? “Working with Björk came about when she wanted me to appear with her on stage at the Brit Awards.
It was very short notice and I couldn’t make it but then she called back and we spent a day jamming in my studio and recording together.” The results can be heard on Björk’s experimental album, Telegram. Glennie plays on the duet My Spine, which features wind chimes and a strong beat.
She commissions new works from young composers, too, and then performs them on stage. These have included more than 130 concertos and recital pieces, as well as material for a percussion ensemble.
While the musician travels back to Scotland with her work, she has now settled in rural Cambridgeshire. Pride of place goes to an enormous collection of 1,800 percussion instruments. “They are not all conventional instruments. A lot of them are made from stuff I have collected from skips and junk yards and used to create sound. There are instruments all around us.”
Her collection includes a set of tuned car exhaust pipes and household hardware. However, her favourite remains a conventional snare drum. “One of the best recordings I ever made was at a farm. I managed to make sound with everything from the sewage tank to the grain tower.”
The percussionist often makes some of the weirder instruments herself. One is a large chopping block played with sticks. Another uses organ pipes filled with water, which sound like a whale. One of her first efforts at an instrument came when she was playing in her back garden as a child. “I saw these pieces of plastic sewer pipe sticking out of the ground and I set about seeing if I could make something from similar materials.”
Nowadays, her stage appearances are famous as she bounds around the platform barefoot playing up to 60 instruments back to back. “I can feel the instrument much better through the vibrations on my feet. If I wear shoes it’s like dulling the sound with a glove.”
After going through a highly publicised divorce from fellow musician Greg Malcangi in 2003, Glennie bounced back with an acclaimed film entitled Touch The Sound. During the making of the movie, her childhood home in Aberdeenshire was destroyed by fire, leaving her to kick through the ashes.
The film was her chance to show how she and other profoundly deaf people ‘feel’ sound and how we, as human beings, deal with it too. Directed by Hollywood veteran Thomas Riedelsheimer, it went on to win the Critics’ Week Award at Locarno Film Festival.
Offstage, Glennie relaxes by “pottering around the garden” or driving a sporty BMW Z4 convertible. “I’m very selfish with my car. The Z4 has no space at all to carry instruments but it makes me feel good. I do expend a lot of energy during my performances and after a show I like to jump in the car and drive myself home. I like to go quite fast but it gives me an opportunity to wind down and relax.”
The energetic musician’s other mean machine is a high-performance Italian motorbike. MV Agusta make some of the most stylish superbikes but Glennie admits she is really a fair-weather biker. “It’s a tremendous feeling of freedom when you pull on your leathers and fire up the engine. My love affair with two wheels started when I was a passenger but I decided to take my test five years ago and then bought my own machine.”
Spare time is a rare treat. When she isn’t playing an instrument, the barefoot drummer is lobbying the Government on issues as diverse as parking rights for motorcyclists and musical education. She also designs and sells jewellery.
Her performing schedule remains as busy as ever but the artist’s long-term plan is to establish a series of research centres around the country.
“I want to look at the many different aspects of being a musician and to encourage people to play.”
Glennie gems
- Glennie has registered her own tartan cloth called ‘The Rhythms of Evelyn Glennie’- Her early influences were Glenn Gould and Jacqueline du Pré
- Diverse musical partners have included Sting, the King’s Singers, Bobby McFerrin and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir
- TV appearances range from arts programme, The South Bank Show, to Sesame Street. She has also been the subject of This Is Your Life.
* 7 October – Eindhoven (Holland)
* 20 October – Manchester (England)
* 21 October – Ancona (Italy)
* 28 October – Peoria (USA) For a full list of venues and dates, see www.evelyn.co.uk
