ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, April 12, 1996 TAG: 9604120010
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW YORK
SOURCE: MARY CAMPBELL ASSOCIATED PRESS
EVELYN GLENNIE, the first full-time solo percussionist in classical music, is a 30-year-old woman from Scotland who happens to be deaf. She has a precision, originality and style that has made her a favorite of audiences throughout the world.
Evelyn Glennie, her long brown hair flying, hands grabbing different drumsticks, reaches far and fast from timbales to snare drums and cymbals to congas and bass drum as she plays a percussion concerto with the New York Philharmonic.
As far as she knows, Glennie is the first full-time solo percussionist in classical music. She has made six recordings and won a Grammy.
She also is deaf.
How does she do it? Like any soloist, she stands in front of the orchestra, where she and the conductor can see each other. Sometimes she follows the conductor's beat and sometimes the conductor follows hers.
If anything, deafness has helped her career. As a student at the Royal Academy of Music in London, she was the subject of documentaries by the BBC and Yorkshire TV. Both were shown nationally. ``This created curiosity and concert organizers took the plunge. They hired me for lunch-time recitals and to take part in concerts,'' she says.
Now 30, Glennie still gets invited on TV - usually to play marimba, because it's melodic - and to talk about how she does it. Earlier this month PBS featured her on the first of three ``People in Motion'' programs about overcoming disabilities.
She often performs with bare feet but not, as many suppose, so she can feel the music's vibrations through the floor. She says it's so she can move quietly on stage and because the height of her marimba can't be adjusted and even flat shoes make her a little tall for it.
``It's difficult to say what I feel on stage,'' Glennie says. ``Maybe the visual aspect doesn't look that way at all but there are many moments I feel absolutely tranquil.
``It's more the freedom in the playing I enjoy. I love to take a score, learn its rules and screw it up and do what I want to do with it. Most musicians do that to a certain extent. I can do it to a great extent.''
That isn't because she plays percussion, Glennie says, but because she often plays new pieces; more than 50 have been composed for her. When she entered the Royal Academy of Music, there were just three percussion concertos in the academy's library. They usually were played by an orchestra's drummer.
A native of Scotland, Glennie was 16 when she became the Royal Academy's first deaf student and first solo percussion student. Calling herself a fairly determined person, an assessment she upgrades to stubborn, Glennie says she simply forged ahead. She had the advantage, she says, of knowing exactly what she wanted.
She graduated at 19 and got an agent, who booked her with music clubs throughout the United Kingdom. ``The fees can be extremely low. You do it for the experience,'' she says. Next, she got bookings at summer music festivals.
``My aim very much was to target the public and not play to other musicians,'' she says. ``That is still my aim. That is why TV is so important. It is very easy for percussionists to become sucked into the world of percussion and playing for each other.''
She also set about getting new music to play by having it written for her. James MacMillan composed ``Veni, Veni, Emmanuel,'' which she played with the New York Philharmonic. The New York Times said it ``may well stand as the most thrilling moment of the New York Philharmonic season.''
A London concert on TV had a piece by MacMillan and Glennie saw the excitement of the orchestra and audience. ``I haven't been disappointed at all. He uses the orchestra so well,'' she says.
``Unfortunately, some percussion concertos can be very virtuosic to the eye but not too emotionally convincing.'' Glennie, who talks about music as though she hears it, says she knows these things from reading a score.
``I usually have about 10 commissions on the go at one time,'' she says. ``Only two or three will be interesting. You have to do this to keep things going. I have money I keep aside each year to pay for music from composers that are unknown but I'm intrigued by their music.''
She has commissioned jazz composer Django Bates. ``I asked for a humorous piece based on kitchen utensils. I'm striking pots and pans and tuned plates.'' She has also commissioned a piece for percussion and string quartet from Icelandic composer Haflidi Hallgrinsson, and two concertos for brass band and percussion.
Not all percussion is loud and pounding. Solo recitals especially need a change of pace, Glennie says. Her latest recording, for Catalyst Records, an RCA label, is ``Wind in the Bamboo Grove,'' marimba music by several Japanese composers.
She keeps tools of her trade at the home 70 miles north of London she shares with her husband. She also keeps a percussion kit in America, one in Tokyo and two in Europe, all alike. She knows how her instruments ``speak'' and she wants the width of the marimba bars and other spacings to be the same in every concert.
In May she'll interrupt a United Kingdom tour to play one concert in France. The instruments she uses in France will go to Bergen, Norway, and the instruments from Britain will go to Prague.
Glennie's musical life began with piano lessons at 8. She focused on percussion because it looked interesting.
She became ``profoundly deaf'' at 12 when nerves in her ears deteriorated. She continued in regular school, learning lip reading by watching television classes and just picking it up.
Glennie's voice is inflected like a hearing person's and her accent is Scots. She says she hears some sounds that are made with clarity. She tried hearing aids and found sounds unclear and confusing. She isn't going to try a transplant operation that might improve hearing.
``I've spent most of my life adjusting to where I am at the moment,'' she says. ``I recognize sounds in my own way, like the vibrations of lorries going by. To have all of that changed yet again I think would be pretty traumatic. I'm still progressing as a musician and can't afford to have any major stumbling blocks interrupting the flow of my career.
``And I'm happy.''
LENGTH: Long : 113 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Evelyn Glennie and the New York Philharmonic performby CNB``Veni, Veni, Emmanuel,'' which was composed for her. color.