Latest news with #EvelynGlennie
The Herald Scotland
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Roll over Beethoven, we have our own deaf music genius Evelyn Glennie
More firsts: let's bang the drum for Dame Evelyn Glennie, our first deaf percussionist, though she prefers to be known as a musician with a hearing impairment. Oakly-doakly.. She was first to perform a percussion concerto at London's Royal Academy of Music, first to give a percussion recital and concerto performance at the Proms, and the first percussionist to be made a Dame Commander of the Controversial British Empire (DCCBE). READ MORE: Robert McNeil: I detest yon Romans but I dig excavating their wee fortlets RAB MCNEIL'S SCOTTISH ICONS: John Knox – the fiery preacher whose pal got burnt at the stake Rab McNeil: All this talk about celebs and their neuroses is getting on my nerves OFF THE WALL PRIOR to that, when she was just 27, she undertook the grave responsibility of being an Officer of Yon British Empire (OYBE). She was named Scotswoman of the Decade in 1990, and has more than 80 awards and 20-plus honorary doctorates to her name. Gonnae need a bigger mantelpiece, hen. She was the youngest person ever elected to the Percussive Arts Society's Hall of Fame. Evelyn Elizabeth Ann Glennie was also quite young when she was born on 19 July 1965 in Methlick, Aberdeenshire, the only daughter of her farming parents' three children. Mother was a church organist, father an accordionist in a Scottish country dance band. But music wasn't everything. Evelyn grew up weaning lambs and doing chores. While still just a wee lass, she was struck by a neurological disorder and, by the age of eight, had started to lose her hearing – just after she'd started to play the piano. From piano, she graduated to clarinet but, when she was 13, an audiologist said it would no longer be possible to play any music and suggested, furthermore, that she moved to a school for the deaf. However, deploying the 'utter stubbornness and single-mindedness' that she identifies as a North-East trait, she decided to remain at Ellon Academy, where peripatetic percussion teacher Ron Forbes made one of those interventions that change lives. Prior to meeting him, Evelyn had been getting 'very, very angry' about her situation. But, while she was trying to tune timpani, patient and sensitive Mr Forbes suggested she put her hands flat on the wall to feel the vibrations. 'I could feel the vibrations in my hands and lower parts of my legs,' Glennie has recalled, 'so I got the pitch that way.' High sounds are felt in the body's higher parts, low sounds in the lower, she explains. Using her body as a resonating chamber, and aided by perfect pitch, she often plays barefoot during performances and recordings, feeling the music, and hopefully not any drawing pins, through her soles. Hey, it's sole music! Apologies. When she was 16, Evelyn auditioned for and was accepted by both the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music. She chose the former, despite its reported initial reluctance to interview her, and moved to yonder London. While at the Academy, she won various prizes including the Queen's Commendation for general excellence, and was soon the subject of a BBC documentary, A Will To Win, followed by Yorkshire TV's Good Vibrations (also the title of her 1990 memoir). She was a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland and the Cults Percussion Ensemble, formed in 1976 by the aforementioned Mr Forbes. After graduating in 1985, she began playing professionally. Now, she has dozens of recordings to her credit and has performed all over the world, at one point giving more than 100 concerts a year. In 2004, she was the subject of Touch the Sound, an 'arthouse' documentary by Thomas Riedelsheimer. Arthouse usually means nutty but Evelyn has described the film as an 'explanation of sound'. SWEET HARMONY IN it, Glennie collaborates with English experimental musician Fred Frith and others, performing 100ft apart in an abandoned German sugar factory. Frith said it 'was great visually, but limited in other ways'. In other words nutty. Fortunately, it also followed Evelyn travelling from New York to Japan with a suitcase full of drumsticks. As she told the Scotsman in 2009: 'My role on the planet is to bring the power of sound.' Not only does she tour yonder globe as a soloist with various orchestras and musicians, she gives talks, presents podcasts and conducts masterclasses. She also engages in motivational speaking. I quite fancied giving that a go myself. However, in the end, I couldn't be bothered. Dame Evelyn plays the Great Highland Bagpipes and has her own registered stage tartan known as 'The Rhythms of Evelyn Glennie'. She also has her own jewellery range, and has confessed openly to spending time metal detecting and poking around antiques fairs. She's a right collaborator, so to say, having worked with Björk, Steve Hackett, Bela Fleck, Bobby McFerrin, Fred Frith, Mark Knopfler, The King's Singers, Kodō, Danny Boyle (London 2012 Olympic Games opening ceremony), the Royal Shakespeare Company (Troilus and Cressida), and experimental jazz – hmm, challenging – practitioners Trio HLK, to name but a few. (Image: Bjork) As well as a performer, she's also a composer, 'not with a capital C', she says, but writing write music for television, radio and other media. This has afforded her opportunities to deploy some of the more unusual instruments in her 2,000-strong collection. Fair to point out this includes a twig, a string and a hollow wooden cylinder. Dame Evelyn has commissioned a plethora of new percussion work and is a strong advocate of children's music education. Her advice to young percussionists? 'Do not get used to waiting for things to happen.' AYE POD IN 2021, she became Chancellor of Robert Gordon University and, in 2022, launched her own podcast, inviting punters from music, sport, television and academia to discuss their idea of listening and interpretation of sound. Talk about multitasking. She has said: 'As we live longer and (stay] healthier for longer, we need to keep ourselves busy.' Oh god, do we have to? Despite her global profile, and living latterly in Cambridgeshire, her roots lie here in Daftieland. Scotland, she believes, 'never ceased to amaze the world with its forward vision, bold action and great educational institutions'. I see. Is there another Scotland somewhere? With commendable accuracy, the New York Times has described Dame Evelyn Glennie as 'extraordinary'. The paper added: 'One has to pause in sheer wonder at what she has accomplished.' Yep. Pausing even as we speak.
Daily Mail
26-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Percussionist DAME EVELYN GLENNIE reveals her life-changing payday
Dame Evelyn Glennie, 59, is the first person to sustain a full-time career as a solo percussionist, performing worldwide with great artists and orchestras, writes Peter Robertson. Born in Aberdeenshire, her hearing declined from the age of eight, making her achievements all the more remarkable. She's worked with artists include Danny Boyle (on the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics), Bjork and Dire Straits' Mark Knopfler. She was made a Dame in 2007. Divorced, she lives in Cambridgeshire. What did your parents teach you about money? To be financially independent and responsible with it. Being brought up on a farm, the holidays were always spent doing things like picking potatoes at other farms, where I'd get £6 to £10 a day, and that went into a jar I could use to buy things such as Christmas presents. When I left home at 16 to study at the Royal Academy of Music in London, it was important to be responsible with money. What was your first pay packet? One of my jobs on the farm was to look after sick lambs. If I managed to keep them alive, once they were sold at the mart, Dad allowed me to have that money. So that was a nice incentive, although I'd have looked after the lambs for no money, of course, as they were so cute. When I started doing sessions for Harry Secombe's TV series Highway, I got double what I'd expected so I told them they must have made a mistake, but it was explained that as I played multiple instruments I earned more. Have you ever struggled to make ends meet? Not really. I've been lucky on that front. As a student in London I tried to get through each week on £10-£25 – I wasn't the sort to buy new jeans over a piece of music. In those days you could buy lunch in the Academy canteen cheaply. My diet was practically sausage and beans. I had a complete focus on creating a career as a solo percussionist. Have you ever been paid silly money? In the late 1980s I was asked to take part in a TV advert, playing the marimba on top of a Fuji Bank building in Paris. The fee was £20,000, so of course I was going to say yes. They also gave me free rein to buy a dress, so I went to Harrods and got one for more than £1,000. It seemed absurd to buy that without a worry. The £20,000 allowed me to buy a 3.5-ton van to transport my own equipment, to tour Europe and build a team of people. So that money was a godsend. What's been the best year of your financial life? My first 20 or so years in the music business were very lucrative, in that many of the arts organisations, promoters and venues and so on were well supported. That's not the case nowadays – it can be a real challenge. I was lucky to become financially independent quite early on, in order to do things like employ a team of people. If I started out now, I don't think that would be possible in quite the same way. Are you a spender or saver? I'm certainly a saver, but I do spend quite a bit on percussion instruments, which I love, think are beautiful and am curious about, and I still use a lot of them. That is really my thing. I can probably count the pairs of shoes I have with one hand – though I sometimes record and perform barefoot to feel physically more connected to the sound. The Evelyn Glennie Collection in Huntingdon, which people can visit, includes over 3,800 instruments. What's the most expensive thing you bought for fun? I had a midlife moment when playing in Austria about 25 years ago. I had just passed my motorbike test and bought a lovely MV Agusta for about £12,000, and took it home in the 7.5 ton truck I had then. But insurers seemed to target musicians, and with my hearing impairment the cost went through the roof, so I never rode the bike. I still have it though, and when people tour my Collection it's the first thing they see... and the last thing they expect to see. What has been your biggest money mistake? That was in about 1988 when I bought my first property – a one-bedroom flat in west London. I'd had no advice. Then, when properties were sold in Scotland, you just paid the asking price – there was no haggling. I assumed that was true of the UK. I moved out of London to where I am now in 1992 – I wish I'd been in a financial position to keep the flat. In the Collection there's a card written by a neighbour in London threatening to 'take things further' if I didn't keep the noise down! The best money decision you've made? Employing someone who knows more about money than me. That has been important because, although I'm a saver and like to know what's in the bank and what my money is doing, I'm not one who wants to manage it day to day. Do you have a pension? Yes, on my parents' advice, I've had one since I was a young professional. Do you own any property? I own a five-bedroom house in a tiny village, two houses that are rented out and a business unit. Do you donate money to charity? Yes. I've always done quite a lot for charities, whether doing something or donating financially. But at the moment the bulk of my energy is towards supporting my own charity, The Evelyn Glennie Foundation. Its mission is to teach the world to listen. For example, we work in prisons where listening is key to what goes on. Listening has been an important part of my journey. If you were Chancellor of the Exchequer, what would you do? We put a lot of importance on wellbeing, and people are living longer, yet I think the elderly are not always well treated. We need to think about the quality of care and the respect that we put towards that generation, because they can be incredibly valuable to society. What is your top indulgence? Aside from percussion instruments, I enjoy going to antique fairs, for walks and cycles, and metal detecting – but those aren't expensive hobbies. I was given a metal detector about 12 years ago by a friend as a Christmas present. I've never found anything valuable – mostly bits of old farm machinery – but it's a lovely, relaxing thing to do. What is your No.1 financial priority? To make sure there's always financial independence, and the wherewithal to ensure everything is protected as much as possible.
