Evelyn Glennie

The Rhythm of Resonance and Feel

Dame Evelyn Glennie is a world-class musician, a master listener, and an extraordinary human who is perhaps the first person to make a life-long career strictly as a solo percussionist. You cannot categorize her sound creation into one musical style. What she does is not classical, folk, orchestral, rock, Latin, blues, or world music. She is simply a solo percussionist—a profession so new that there aren’t any classifications for the practice.

She also happens to be profoundly deaf.

Glennie grew up on a farm in Methlick, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. At age eight, she started losing her hearing, and by 12, she was profoundly deaf. Glennie started wearing hearing aids, but found she could feel sounds without them, and she started using her body to listen.

“I assumed that sound came through the ears,” she said during an interview on the Norwegian/Swedish talk show, Skavlan. “But I learned the initial impact came through the ears, but the resonance was felt through the body.”

June 2021 Issue