Percussionist Plays From Her Heart : Hearing Loss Hasn’t Slowed Evelyn Glennie

An autobiography may seem rather premature from a 26-year-old, Evelyn Glennie (24 when she wrote it) immediately concedes. But then, how many deaf percussionists are busy releasing CDs on a major label contract and touring to the tune of 100 concerts a season?

“I’ve kept a diary since I was 11,” she explains about her book, “Good Vibrations.” “I happen to enjoy reading about people, myself, and I felt a real need to do it. It’s written in a very lighthearted way, which seemed right at the time. It’s not just to the percussion world.”

Glennie does indeed have a story to tell. Driven more by her own restless curiosity than any external goading, she studied first piano, then clarinet, on her parents’ farm in Scotland.

But as she matured musically, she also was gradually losing her hearing. The first indications came when Glennie was 8, and by the time she was 12, she was being fitted for hearing aids and directed toward a special school for the deaf.

“The nerves gradually deteriorated,” she now says. “Nobody really knows why.”

That would seem to present insurmountable problems for a performing musician, but not to Glennie.

“Actually, they are problems that can somehow be overcome,” she says with characteristic quiet determination, suggesting that hearing loss is just another technical challenge. “There’s the urge there to do it. There’s a sound there,” she says, pointing to her heart, “rather than here, in the ears.”

On the practical side, Glennie is not completely deaf, and there are little tricks to compensate. “I often play on the cello-bass side of the orchestra, because I prefer the deep sounds. I can’t hear the violins well.”

She has become very adept at reading visual cues and, above all, relies on knowing the music inside and out, spending much of her time with scores. Also, as she points out: “The soloist usually leads the way.

“You’re very lucky here with the rehearsal time. In the U.K. it’s usually one rehearsal and that’s it.”

Here, in this case, is the Hollywood Bowl, where Glennie debuts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic tonight and Saturday on the annual “Fireworks Finale.” Selected as an “emerging” performer to watch, part of her agenda as an AT&T; Premiere Artist includes talking to hearing-impaired children at the Bowl today.

Though she has done similar work in the U.K., her primary missionary endeavor is on behalf of her beloved percussion.

“My favorite instrument is the snare drum,” Glennie says, adding another unlikely aspect to her startling career. “In Scotland, the snare drum is very prominent in Highland bands. The Scottish style of playing is in my blood.

“It’s a very powerful instrument, but it can also be soothing, like velvet. It’s a real challenge for composers.”

Her work at the Bowl, however, features the tuned mallet instruments favored on her first CD, “Rhythm Song.” Two of the tracks from that disc, arrangements of Saint-Saens’ “Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso” and Monti’s “Csardas,” will be on the program.

“I’m very aware of what’s been recorded already by percussionists,” Glennie reflects, “which are mostly focused on a very narrow audience. ‘Rhythm Song’ was good to do as an introduction.”

She plans her percussion crusade carefully, balancing the needs of both repertory and audience building. Her follow-up recordings, due out next month, reflect this--one is a serious effort of contemporary pieces called “Light and Darkness,” while the other is a compilation of dance tunes from Fred Astaire numbers to Hungarian dances.

“I think I can only help to expose percussion to all sorts of people,” she says earnestly. “The balance between the lighter and more serious side is important.

“I think in a hundred years people will be finally tuned in to the differences in percussion, and able to talk about how one snare drum roll is different from another, the way they talk about how Anne-Sophie Mutter’s violin playing is different from Yehudi Menuhin’s, for example.”