Rhythm as a special form of touch

Percussionist Evelyn Glennie, who plays in Dublin this week, has had to commission her own repertoire, she tells Arminta Wallace

Premieres are nothing new for Evelyn Glennie. When she began her rise to international prominence in the 1980s, she was the first classical musician to make a career as a solo percussionist. Since there were no solo percussionists, there was very little in the way of solo percussion repertoire. So Glennie commissioned some. To date, in fact, she has commissioned more than 100 new works - effectively a whole "new" percussion repertoire.

Only time will tell which pieces will survive; but one which is, for the moment, very much alive and kicking is James MacMillan's Veni, Veni Emmanuel, which Glennie will play with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra in Dublin tomorrow. Since it was first unveiled in London in 1992, this concerto for percussion and orchestra has had more than 350 performances all over the world - a good many of them, though she admits she has lost count of exactly how many, featuring Glennie as soloist.

"It seems to have captured the imagination of a lot of orchestras throughout the world," she says. "Partly because it's such a great piece for orchestra - it really stretches every single player to the limit. Of course, it was written in 1992, so in percussion terms it's actually quite an old piece," she adds with a chuckle.

As one of her fellow Scot's most successful works, Veni Veni Emmanuel seems almost to have taken on a life of its own - elevating MacMillan in the process to the position he currently holds as one of the best known of contemporary art music composers.

"He really has given the percussion world - and indeed the music world in general - a tremendous piece of music to work with," Glennie says. She recalls the American premiere in 1994, when she performed the piece in Washington DC with Mstislav Rostropovich conducting.

"After the final concert, we all huddled round the kitchen table in Rostropovich's apartment eating a wonderful Russian meal that his wife had cooked - and he asked James to write a cello concerto, which he subsequently did with the London Symphony Orchestra. It was just amazing to be in that conversation, to see that little bit of musical history being made."

It's not beyond the bounds of imagination that the Dublin performance of Veni Veni Emmanuel may contribute another little piece to that historical jigsaw - for it has just been announced that, owing to the illness of the conductor who was supposed to have wielded the baton, MacMillan has agreed to come and conduct the concert at the National Concert Hall himself. Will this make any difference to the soloist?

"Well," says Glennie, "each conductor brings their own stamp to the piece. I love working with James, and of course he's gaining a terrific reputation as a conductor. I did it many, many years ago with him, when he had just started conducting - so I'm looking forward to doing it again. But at the end of the day you play a piece the way you want to play it, no matter who's conducting."

Given that the piece is new to an Irish audience, what can we expect? In a programme note written before the first performance, the composer describes Veni Veni Emmanuel as one continuous movement which lasts for about 25 minutes, though it is divided into five sub-sections.

"On one level," MacMillan writes, "it is a purely abstract work in which all the musical material is drawn from the 15th-century French Advent plainchant. On another level it is a musical exploration of the theology behind the Advent message."

If the plainchant element provides an overall structural basis for the work, its metaphysical energy comes from its evocation of a rhythmic heartbeat motif. This, the composer explains, represents the human presence of Christ, and the piece concludes with a reference to the Easter message.

"Advent texts proclaim the promised day of liberation from fear, anguish and oppression, and this work is an attempt to mirror this in music," declares MacMillan.

How does Glennie feel about performing a piece which has such a clearly Christian ethos?

"Like a lot of kids, I was forced to go to church," she says, with one of her musical chuckles. "I was brought up through the Church of Scotland, but it hasn't been a massive force in my life. Nevertheless, I think all of us, somewhere along the line, have some sort of spiritual feeling."

Glennie's Church of Scotland upbringing gives the collaboration with MacMillan - a lay Dominican who describes himself as "a liberal Catholic, a left-winger", and who has been an outspoken opponent of sectarianism - a suitably ecumenical feel. But a performance of Veni Veni Emmanuel is not, as Glennie stresses, exclusively - or even primarily - a religious experience.

"Most of James's music has a religious thread running through it," she says. "I've had one conductor who declined to conduct the piece, based on its religious connotations, which is interesting. Other than that, it doesn't matter what kind of religious place you come from - it's basically a great piece of music."

Scored for a generous array of percussion instruments including marimba, vibraphone, Chinese gongs, congas, snare drums, cowbells, cymbals, tubular bells and something called a "log drum", Veni Veni Emmanuel gives Glennie an opportunity to show off her wide-ranging and often jaw-dropping percussion skills. She doesn't, however, relish the kind of reviews which - all too often - present her as a "wild woman", dashing around the stage in her bare feet and banging things.

"I'm not so keen on the 'bashing' stuff, really. In fact, that's exactly the kind of description that I'm trying to get away from," she says. "It gives percussion, well, not a great name. My first priority is always to deal with the music content. How you achieve that is where individual style comes in. I don't practise how I look: I practise how I want to sound. And whatever it takes to get the sound that I want, well, that's what I do."

Those in the know about percussion emphasise the "controlled ferocity" and "astounding delicacy" of Glennie's playing. "Her speed and accuracy", according to an online percussion website called Drummergirl, "can barely be described."

This level of performance would be astonishing in any musician. It is, perhaps, all the more astonishing in the context of Glennie's deafness - though that is a topic which doesn't particularly interest Glennie herself.

SHE HAS WRITTEN a book about her life, Good Vibrations, and has made television documentaries and videos which discuss her belief that hearing is a specialised form of touch and that our general understanding of the word "deaf" is incorrect. When asked about it nowadays, she tends to refer people to an essay on her own highly sophisticated (naturally, she was one of the first classical musicians ever to have one) website.

Otherwise, she simply gets on with things. Our interview, for example, has been conducted by phone with the help of her personal assistant, Carla Leete. From my end, there has been little perceptible difference between this and any other telephone interview - apart, perhaps, from Glennie's obvious warmth and relaxed humour, her focused, attentive replies and her holistic approach to music and to life in general.

Not to mention the fact that there are a huge number of potential questions to be asked in a relatively short time, ranging from her interest in creating new percussion instruments ("there are", she observes, with a wry chuckle, "a lot of home-made contraptions around here") to her burgeoning success as a jewellery designer.

Indeed her remarks about jewellery serve as a good illustration of that holistic approach - which has seen her move in a wide variety of musical circles, working with musicians of all kinds from Björk to Indonesian gamelan orchestras.

"I've always liked jewellery," is how she puts it, "and I have a fair collection from all over the world - a lot of ethnic jewellery, anddesigner-type pieces. Making jewellery is a bit like music, really, where you start with an idea and then create something. And it's great to bring into music education projects as well, because with jewellery - as with percussion, and with music generally - we're using different shapes, different textures, different materials and so on."

Meanwhile, back at the premieres, she has just released a recording of another percussion concerto by the American composer Margaret Brouwer, Aurolecent Circles. Immediately after her Dublin performance she will head down under to give yet another premiere, this time of an Australian work.

Next it's New York to play Veni Veni Emmanuel with the Orpheus Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. Then comes Canada, and back to the US. Another day, another premiere in the life of Evelyn Glennie.

Evelyn Glennie will play James MacMillan's Veni Veni Emmanuel, with the composer conducting, at the National Concert Hall on Fri, Feb 24, as part of the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra's 2005-2006 season, which takes place in association with Anglo Irish Bank. Her website is www.evelyn.co.uk. James MacMillan's programme note can be accessed online at the website of music publisher Boosey & Hawkes, www.boosey.com