Last modified: Monday, March 22, 2010
Dame Evelyn Glennie to visit the Jacobs School of Music
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 22, 2010
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Internationally renowned Grammy Award-winning percussion soloist Evelyn Glennie will visit the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music Monday, April 12, 2010 for a series of intensive educational sessions. All events, including a percussion master class from noon to 2 p.m. in Recital Hall, are open to the public.
Touch The Sound, an award-winning film that documents Glennie's life and musical achievements, will be shown in Recital Hall from 2:30-4:30 p.m. April 12. The day concludes with a seminar with composition students from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. in Sweeney Hall.
"The percussion department faculty and students are very excited about Evelyn's visit," said John Tafoya, professor of percussion and chair of the Jacobs School of Music Percussion Department. "Her life story is an inspiration to us all. I hope that everyone will take advantage of these unique and incredibly informative sessions."
Glennie is the first person in musical history to successfully create and sustain a full-time career as a solo percussionist. An eclectic, innovative musician, she constantly redefines goals and expectations of percussion.
Glennie gives more than 100 performances a year worldwide with top conductors, orchestras and artists. For the first 10 years of her career virtually every performance she gave was ground-breaking in some way, said Tafoya. Her diversity of collaborations have included performances artists such as Nana Vasconcelos, Kodo, Bela Fleck, Bjork, Bobby McFerrin, Sting, Emmanuel Ax, Kings Singers, Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Fred Frith.
Glennie has commissioned 160 new works for solo percussion from many of the world's most eminent composers and also composes and records music for film and television. She was nominated for a British Academy of Film and Television Arts award (BAFTA), the UK equivalent of the Oscars.
Out of the 25 solo recordings made so far, Glennie's first CD, Bartok's Sonata for two Pianos and Percussion won her a Grammy Award in 1988. Two more Grammy nominations followed, one of which she won for a collaboration with Bela Fleck. Glennie's twelfth solo CD, Shadow Behind the Iron Sun, was based on a radical improvisational concept.
Glennie has written a best-selling autobiography, Good Vibrations, collaborated with director Thomas Riedelsheimer on the film Touch the Sound, presented two series of her own television programs ("Soundbites") for the BBC, and regularly appears on television programs across the world, including "The David Letterman Show," "Sesame Street," "60 Minutes," and "PBS Profile" in the U.S. and in the U.K., "The South Bank Show," "Commonwealth Games Festival Concert" and "This is Your Life."
Glennie's activities also include lobbying the government on political issues. Her consortium with Sir James Galway, Julian Lloyd Webber and the late Michael Caman led to the Government providing £332 million toward music education. She is also a jewelry designer and motivational speaker and performs with orchestras on the Great Highland Bagpipes.
After 20 years in the music business, she has begun teaching privately, which allows her to explore the art of teaching and to explore the world of sound therapy as a means of communication.
In 1993, Glennie was awarded the OBE (Officer of the British Empire). This was extended in 2007 to Dame Commander for her services to music, and to date has received over 80 international awards.
