Drums to center stage…
This charismatic Scotswoman…
…still the only full-time solo percussionist touring the planet,
has decisively redefined the role of percussive instruments
in the world of classical music.
She is credited with “the sudden emergence of percussion
from the rear of the orchestra to front and center stage,
both in fact and in public attention.”- W. Schultze, Berliner Morgenpost
The music she plays….
“I wanted to play my heart out and it was so difficult to express myself when there was someone else dictating the tempo and loudness or softness.”
“I play with a sense of danger. I learn the rules, then break them.”
It comes as no surprise that innovation in solo percussive music has been spurred by a performer rather than a composer. It is the percussion player who is most keenly aware of the dearth in material written for her instruments; it is her exceptional gift for musical perception and expression that makes filling the void imperative. “I have a tremendous passion for the progress of percussion through musical means, that is, gaining exciting repertoire.” Below are videos that will get you better acquainted with this most extraordinary artist.
Evelyn Glennie thus not only performs little known works for percussion (a Milhaud Marimba and Vibraphone concerto, for example) but also tracks down unpublished ones (recital pieces from composers in New Zealand, Sweden, others), adapts pieces for other instruments (Chopin on marimba; folk music adaptations) and most importantly commissions new compositions for percussion solo and ensemble. To date, she has commissioned over ninety works from some of the world’s top contemporary composers (Richard Rodney Bennett, Michael Daugherty, Dave Heath, James MacMillan, John McLeod, Dominic Muldowney, Thea Musgrave, Askell Masson, Akira Miyoshi, and Christopher Rouse).
She has also instituted her own Percussion Composition Award, open to composers from the United Kingdom. Her voracious talent has inevitably led her to seek out and absorb the music of non-Western traditions and the more popular genres. Hence the collaborations with musicians ranging from the Icelandic pop star Bjork, the British jazz musician Django Bates, the Brazilian percussionist Nana Vasconcelos, and to the Japanese drummers, Kodo. Crossing the boundaries of era, tradition and form, she has made them vanish and created a rich continuum of new rhythmic sound experience.
- ©Victoria B. Cajipe / FanFaire 2000
