She's the first concert artist to ever make a living as a full-time percussion soloist.
She's a profoundly deaf professional musician.
She was the first classical artist to have her own Web site.
Any way you look at it, Evelyn Glennie is a remarkable musician.
And she'll be performing this weekend with the Utah Symphony.
True to form, Glennie will be premiering a new concerto when she comes.
Glennie has commissioned 140-145 works to date, she said by phone from a hotel room in Toronto (using a lip-reader who conveyed questions to her). This one will be by composer Kevin Puts.
In a separate interview, Puts spoke with the Deseret Morning News shortly after arriving in California for rehearsals with the Pacific Symphony Orchestra, which co-commissioned the percussion concerto with the Utah Symphony. (The concerto will be premiered in California, then come to Utah.)
In writing the piece, Puts said that he kept Glennie very much in mind. Conscious of the fact the people were coming to hear Glennie, he said that he wrote it so she would be showcased. It's the classical approach to the concerto, he said. "You want the audience to be focused totally on what the soloist is doing, so it doesn't seem like some kind of secondary activity to what's going on in the orchestra — but really in the spotlight."
With another concerto premiered by Yo-Yo Ma and an orchestral concerto commission for the Minnesota Orchestra — all within about two months' time — Puts wanted to put his best foot forward. In fact, he resigned from his position as associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin in order to have more time to write.
"I don't think it's enough just to do these pieces and have them happen and move on to the next thing. I really wanted it to go well. I wanted to write pieces that I thought were special and represented my best work."
The concerto will feature Glennie on the marimba, vibraphone, glockenspiel, crotales and tubular bells, or chimes. Puts said that he tried to limit the number of instruments on which Glennie is playing so that it's less of an athletic spectacle and more of a lyric movement from one instrument to the next.
Glennie described Puts as a "romantic-type of composer," who emphasizes the lyric and harmonic levels to the music. But, she added, "The criteria in dealing with new music is always to keep an open mind."
And she has kept her mind open often, so that a hallmark of her career has been introducing new music. "It's been a massively important part of my work as a musician because all the repertoire is not yet 100 years old. We don't have the body of repertoire yet, if you compare it to violin or piano repertoire. So we have to work to get these pieces written and it's been a very interesting journey."
And, she added, it can be a sometimes difficult and long journey. One commission, for instance, by John Corigliano, is taking about 10 years to come to fruition — from the time it was first mentioned to him to the time it will be performed. "So it can be a massive amount of time, but it is important to keep persevering. And all of these pieces of music will still be around once I'm long gone."
By blazing a trail, Glennie has also made it possible for other musicians to become concert percussionists after her. "There's a wonderful surge of players coming really from all corners of the globe, who are now sure that they can create a career as a solo percussionist and sustain that career. That's the most important thing.
"And they are able to start their careers really much, much more quickly than I think I did, in that I had to wait perhaps three years before a piece of music was written. But at least there's this body of repertoire to immediately get them started going.
"And of course, concert promoters nowadays know what's working, and they don't have to ask what is that piece like or 'I don't know about percussion' or that sort of thing. It's been tried and tested over and over again and they just accept — yes, fine, we'll do it. So that really is important."
If you go . . .
What: Utah Symphony, Evelyn Glennie
Where: Abravanel Hall, 123 S. West Temple
When: Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m.
How much: $12-$50
Phone: 355-2787 or 888-451-2787
Web: www.arttix.org
Also: After each performance, a CD-signing event with Keith Lockhart and Utah Symphony musicians will be held to celebrate the release of the symphony's new recording, "Symphonic Dances."
E-mail: rcline@desnews.com