Evelyn Glennie

A Feel for Music

Before the arrival of Evelyn Glennie, the idea of making a living as a percussionist seemed absurd. But this queen of rhythm has proven skeptics wrong, giving close to 110 concerts a year around the world.

At the age of 12, Evelyn Glennie made up her mind to become a full-time professional solo percussionist. It was an unusual ambition for any child, considering that, at that time, there were no full-time professional percussionists in the world.

"I was totally naive, so I just went for it," says Glennie. "If people had told me early on that there were no other full-time solo percussionists and that it was a bad idea to pursue, I might have been influenced by that."

Only much later on, during her studies at the Royal College of Music in London, did Glennie find out, to her amazement, that there had never before been anyone who made a living as a solo percussionist. But this did not deter the young musician, and Glennie has gone on to become the world's leading percussionist.

"Simple curiosity and a very good teacher inspired me," Glennie says when asked how she became interested in percussion. After playing the clarinet and piano, she discovered the slightly rudimentary percussion section of her school orchestra. "I started timpani and percussion at the age of 12," she says.

Finding music

Born in 1965, Glennie is the youngest of three children. She grew up on a farm in Northeast Scotland. Although her mother was the organist in the village church, music did not play a major role in the household. Young Evelyn discovered it largely on her own.

In 1982, she entered the Royal Academy of Music in London where she won many prizes, among them the Queen's Commendation Prize for general excellence -- the highest award bestowed by the Royal Academy. Glennie was only 19 years old when she received her degree with honors.

In 1990, Glennie was named "Scots Woman of the Decade." The following year she received the Royal Philharmonic Society's Charles Heidsieck "Soloist of the Year" prize. And at just 27, she became one of the youngest recipients of the Officer of the British Empire (OBE) -- an award usually reserved for much older persons than she.

A career filled with 'firsts'

Glennie began playing professionally in 1985 and, for the first 10 years of her career, virtually every performance she gave was in some way a first. Either it was the first performance of a new percussion concerto, the first time an orchestra had performed with a solo percussionist or the first solo percussion performance at a festival or venue. The fact that Glennie was the world’s first full-time solo percussionist meant that her repertoire, at least initially, was limited.

"A lot of the pieces in my repertoire were found lying in the vaults of the music information centers of the world," she says. "We found snare drum concertos and all sorts of recital pieces by unknown composers from New Zealand, Iceland, Sweden, Canada and others. Many were marimba concertos."