September 19, 2003
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Portland, Ore. … Laureate Music Director James DePreist conducts the Oregon Symphony in a special concert featuring acclaimed percussionist Evelyn Glennie on Oct. 18, 19 and 20 at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. Media support is provided by The Oregonian.
Evelyn Glennie has established herself as a consummate musician and is today recognized as the “First Lady” of solo percussion. Her outstanding international career, featuring performances on a vast array of instruments, has brought her to the attention of a very diverse audience, whose tastes range from the esoteric and avant-garde to the immediately accessible. She has garnered numerous awards, including a Grammy-award winning performance on Bela Fleck’s CD “Perpetual Motion,” which won Best Classical Crossover Recording. In 2002 Musical America chose Glennie as its “Instrumentalist of the Year,” and Rhythm Magazine has voted her Best Live Percussionist and Best Studio Percussionist for three years in a row.
Glennie has played with such distinguished conductors as Charles Dutoit, Seiji Ozawa, Mstislav Rostropovich, Leonard Slatkin, Esa-Pekka Salonen and David Zinman. Ms. Glennie also regularly appears throughout Asia, Europe and the United Kingdom, and pursues an international schedule that has taken her to all five continents. Upcoming appearances include the San Francisco Symphony, the Singapore Symphony and the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Neeme Jarvi.
In addition to her many and diverse performing activities, Glennie, who is profoundly deaf, collaborated with the Children’s Hearing Institute to establish the Evelyn Glennie National Scholarship Award Program to encourage the pursuit of instrumental music among children who are deaf or hard of hearing.
DePreist and the Symphony open the concert with Glennie taking the stage to perform a work by James Macmillan, “Veni veni Emmanuel,” a percussion concerto written for Glennie and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and first performed in 1992. The concert continues with Askell Masson’s Concerto for Snare Drum and Orchestra. Masson, a native of Iceland, has written a number of works for solo percussion and orchestra and has composed several works specifically for Glennie, including his concerto “Crossings,” first performed by her in 2002.
After intermission, DePreist and the Symphony return to perform Rossini’s overture to “La scala di seta,” (The Silken Ladder), followed by Saint-Saëns’ most popular Symphony No. 3 in C minor, also known as the “Organ” symphony for its inclusion of that instrument in the orchestral scoring. In this work, Saint-Saëns also features the piano as an orchestral instrument, making it the first symphony to do so.
Oregon Symphony Classical concerts regularly include additional opportunities for listeners to learn more about the music and the orchestra. These activities include:
Pre-concert Talks: A special guest will lead a discussion one hour before the concert of the works to be performed. Media support for “Pre-Concert Talks” is provided by Classical Millennium.
Saturday: Laureate Music Director James DePreist will speak briefly from the podium in “Saturday Interactive.” Media support for “Saturday Interactive” is provided by KINKfm102.
Performances are scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 18 and 19 at 7:30 p.m. and Monday, Oct. 20 at 8 p.m. at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. Tickets range in price from $17 to $76 and may be purchased at the Oregon Symphony Ticket Office (923 S.W. Washington), Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. or charged by phone at 503-228-1353 or (800) 228-7343. Tickets also may be purchased at all Ticketmaster outlets (503-790-ARTS) or through Ticketmaster Online, via the Symphony’s Web site at www.orsymphony.org. Service fees may apply.
Evelyn Glennie has established herself as a consummate musician and is today recognized as the “First Lady” of solo percussion. Her outstanding international career, featuring performances on a vast array of instruments, has brought a very diverse audience—with tastes ranging from the esoteric and avant-garde to the immediately accessible—into the at times musically rarefied atmosphere of the classical concert hall.
Ms. Glennie's unique qualities as a solo performer have brought her exceptional success in North America. She now devotes over four months of her annual schedule to recitals, concert and master classes across the United States and Canada, working with, among others, the orchestras of Baltimore, Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, Los Angeles, Montreal, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Toronto and Washington, D.C. She has played with such distinguished conductors as Charles Dutoit, Jahja Ling, Seiji Ozawa, Mstislav Rostropovich, Leonard Slatkin, Esa-Pekka Salonen and David Zinman. Ms. Glennie also regularly appears throughout Asia, Europe and the United Kingdom, and pursues an international schedule that has taken her to all five continents. Her venues range from great concert halls and cathedrals, to the Hollywood Bowl and other outdoor auditoriums, to intimate spaces.
Evelyn Glennie plays the Great Highland Bagpipes and is committed to bringing the instrument and its music to a wider public. In an effort to extend her own, as well as audiences', understanding and appreciation of world music cultures, Ms. Glennie has collaborated with indigenous musicians throughout the world, including Gamelan orchestras in Indonesia, Samba bands in Brazil, Kodo drummers in Japan, and Indian musicians. She has also worked with the Brazilian percussionist and vocalist Nana Vasconcelos and the Icelandic rock singer Björk. Evelyn Glennie has appeared on MTV's “Björk Unplugged,” part of an ongoing collaboration between the two musicians that has included the co-writing and recording of several pieces, including “My Spine,” released as a CD single and on Björk's album "Telegram," and "Oxygen," released on Evelyn's "Greatest Hits" album.
At home in Britain, Evelyn Glennie's career has been highlighted by a BBC Prom debut in 1989 that marked the first ever solo percussion recital at the Proms. Since then, she has made five Prom appearances, including the “Last Night” celebrations in 1994, available on Warner/Teldec video and compact disc. She tirelessly commissions concertos and recital pieces, many of which have already become classics. She is creating her own series of concerts at Wigmore Hall in London and directs a prominent percussion festival in Lucerne. In October 2000 she returns to the National Symphony for a second percussion festival with the orchestra, a follow-up to the highly successful festival she co-directed with Leonard Slatkin there last year.
Evelyn Glennie is also known to a wide public through her radio and television broadcasts. An early CBS documentary featured about the Bartók Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion with the late Sir Georg Solti and Murray Perahia led to a Grammy Award-winning recording of the work in 1988. Since then, a South Bank Show documentary, “Evelyn in Rio,” where she took part in the Carnival, has been released on video by Decca and two major documentaries on her life have been made by the BBC and Yorkshire Television. For BBC Television, she also appeared as both presenter and performer in two series of “Soundbites” and made a musical travelogue of Korea for the “Great Journeys II” series. In addition to being a regular writer for the BBC Music Magazine covering the subject of percussion and world music, she contributes to many other journals.
Her compositions, which are published by Faber Music, include music for films and television produced in collaboration with Greg Malcangi. Productions include “The Music Show” (Channel 4), “See Hear” (BBC), Everyman’s “The Body Collectors of Bangkok” (BBC), a “Survival” special (Anglia), “The Seven Ages of Man”(BBC), “Bramwell”(Davidson Whitby) and a series of commercials for Mazda. The pair’s music for “Trial and Retribution I,” (Linda La Plante) was nominated for a BAFTA in 1998 and they have since produced music for “Trial and Retribution II and III.” They have also written and produced the music for the film “The Trench,” directed by William Boyd.
Evelyn Glennie has made 12 solo albums for BMG Classics/RCA Victor Red Seal. Her recording of MacMillan's “Veni, Veni Emmanuel” received international acclaim and a Classic CD award. Her recordings of Joseph Schwantner’s Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra and “Reflected in Brass: Evelyn Glennie Meets the Black Dyke Band,” were both nominated for Grammy Awards.
Evelyn Glennie was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, where she studied timpani and percussion from the age of 12. In 1982 she entered the Royal Academy of Music in London, winning many prizes, including the Queen's Commendation Prize for all-around excellence, the highest award given by the Royal Academy, and graduating with a honors degree at the age of 19. She went on to win the 1984 Gold Medal in the Shell/London Symphony Orchestra Music Scholarship and, in 1986, a Munster Trust Scholarship, which enabled her to visit Japan for further study. In 1990 she was named “Scot's Woman of the Decade” and the following year she received the Royal Philharmonic Society's Charles Heidsieck “Soloist of the Year” prize. She is the recipient of eight honorary doctorates in music; is a Fellow of the Royal College of Music (1991) and the Royal Academy of Music (1992); and holds an honorary fellowship of the Welsh College of Music and Drama (1995). Evelyn Glennie became an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) in 1993.
Her autobiography, “Good Vibrations,” was published by Century Hutchinson in 1990 and by Simul Press (Japan) in 1992. She has also written, with Paul Cameron, an education books titled “Beat It,” which are aimed at group percussion for beginners in schools.
When Evelyn is not on stage, she enjoys art and painting, and is an avid collector of antiques as well as old and new musical instruments. She maintains a web site at http://www.evelyn.co.uk, which may be visited for more information about her career.
