Evelyn Glennie

Evelyn Glennie, DBE is the first person to successfully sustain a full-time career as a solo percussionist. An eclectic and innovative musician, she constantly redefines the goals and expectations of percussion, creating events of such vitality that they constitute a new type of performance.

She gives more than 100 performances a year worldwide. Her collaborators include Bjork, Bobby McFerrin, Sting, Nana Vasconcelos, and Emmanuel Ax.
Glennie has commissioned 160 new works for solo percussion from many of the world's most eminent composers. She composes and records music for film and television and has been nominated for a British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award, the UK equivalent of the Oscars.

Her first CD, Bartok's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, won a Grammy. She won a second Grammy for a collaboration with banjo player Bela Fleck. Glennie's twelfth solo CD, Shadow Behind the Iron Sun, has once again defied expectations.
She constantly explores new areas of creativity; from writing a bestselling autobiography called Good Vibrations, to collaborating with the renowned film director Thomas Riedelsheimer on Touch the Sound, to appearing on TV shows from Letterman to Sesame Street to 60 Minutes.

Her activities include lobbying the government on political issues. She helped obtain £332 million in funds for music education.

Glennie was awarded the OBE (Officer of the British Empire), extended to Dame Commander. She has received eighty-six international honors to date.