Glennie, Evelyn (1965-…), a Scottish musician, won fame as one of the most outstanding solo percussionists in the world, despite the onset of deafness from early childhood. Glennie began studying the timpani (kettledrums) and other percussion instruments at the age of 12. In 1982, she entered the Royal Academy of Music in London, from which she graduated with honors. There she won several prizes, including the Queen’s Commendation Prize, the academy’s highest award for excellence.
In 1986, Glennie made her London debut as a percussion soloist at the Wigmore Hall. In the same year, she went to Japan and studied with the Japanese marimba player Keiko Abe. In 1987, after her return to Europe, she began to establish herself as a performer. She performed and recorded the Hungarian composer Bela Bartok’s Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, with the Hungarian-born British conductor Sir Georg Solti, the American pianist Murray Perahia, and the English percussionist David Corkhill. The rehearsals and performance were filmed for United States television, and the record won a Grammy Award for the best chamber music recording of 1988. In 1989, she made history by becoming the first solo percussionist to give a recital at the British Broadcasting Corporation Promenade concerts, in the United Kingdom.
Glennie has appeared with many of the world’s great symphony orchestras and has toured throughout Europe, North and South America, Australia, the Far East, and the Middle East. She has an extensive collection of traditional percussion instruments from around the world and sometimes appears with as many as a dozen different instruments. She has extended the relatively small solo percussion repertoire of classical music by commissioning modern composers to write pieces especially for her. The British composers Django Bates, John McLeod, James Macmillan, and Dominic J. Muldowney have written music for Glennie. Among her several recordings are Macmillan’s Veni, veni, Emanuel (1993); Wind in the Bamboo Grove (1995), a set of Japanese-inspired pieces; and Drumming (1996). She is also active in the pop music world, where her records include Dancin’ (1990), and a series of collaborations with the Icelandic rock singer and songwriter Bjork. Glennie has made many television appearances. She founded the Evelyn Glennie Award for percussion composition, open to British composers.
Evelyn Elizabeth Ann Glennie was born on July 19, 1965, in Aberdeen, Scotland, and attended school at Elton Academy. She first studied the piano, clarinet, and recorder before taking up percussion. She is probably the first full-time professional solo percussionist in the world. Her autobiography, Good Vibrations, appeared in 1990. Glennie was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1992.
