Yorkshire Music: News and Updates
Music in Bradford, Leeds and the West Yorkshire Region
Friday, April 06, 2007
Glennie's ISM Medal
The eminent percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie DBE has received the Incorporated Society of Musician’s Distinguished Musician Award for 2006. Dame Evelyn, a long-standing member of the ISM, was presented with the DMA medal by the Society’s President for 2006-07, Colin Bradbury, during the ISM Council’s meeting in London on 17 March 2007.
Receiving the DMA, Dame Evelyn said: ‘This is indeed a great honour, which I am delighted to accept’. She spoke with feeling about her early musical education in village schools in Aberdeenshire, where enlightened local authority policies had enabled her to receive free tuition on both piano and percussion – if cost considerations had forced her parents to choose only one, it might not have been percussion. She urged the ISM to maintain its pressure on the government to ensure that top-quality music teaching was available to all schoolchildren, and vowed to continue her personal campaign to the same end.
Dr David Smith, the ISM’s East Scotland Regional Councillor, who had nominated Dame Evelyn for the DMA, said:
‘Dame Evelyn was born and brought up in rural Aberdeenshire, where she attended Ellon Academy before studying at the RAM. She is the first musician to have managed to sustain a full-time performing career as a solo percussionist: this has taken her around the world, typically performing in 100 concerts per year. She displays a dynamic flair in performance, and has acted as an inspiration for a generation of young percussionists. She is also in demand as a teacher, giving frequent masterclasses wherever she travels. As a champion of new music, she has commissioned 145 new percussion works from the world’s most eminent composers, including concertos and solo percussion pieces, greatly enriching the repertory. She has successfully crossed the boundaries of ‘art’ and ‘popular’ music, working with a wide and disparate array of artists: for example, she has collaborated in projects involving music for film, TV and radio, has explored improvised sound worlds, and composed songs with the vocalist Björk. She has received many accolades for her playing, including a Grammy Award in 1989 for a recording of Bartok’s Sonata for Two Pianos & Percussion. A woman of strongly held views and convictions, she often challenges established orthodoxy. She has received honorary doctorates from 15 UK universities, and was appointed OBE in 1993 and DBE in 2007.’
The ISM established its Distinguished Musician Award in 1976, as a means by which the profession could acknowledge the outstanding contribution of a colleague to British musical life. Previous recipients have been Sir Alexander Gibson, Sir William Walton, Sir Peter Pears, Sir Adrian Boult, James Galway, Jacqueline du Pre, Janet Craxton, Sir Michael Tippett, Sir Reginald Goodall, Sir Charles Groves, Sir Simon Rattle, Norman Del Mar, Witold Lutoslawski, Julian Bream, Sir Colin Davis, George Malcolm, Christopher Hogwood, Sir David Willcocks, Dame Fanny Waterman, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Sir Charles Mackerras, John McCabe, Sir Malcolm Arnold and Pierre Boulez.
Receiving the DMA, Dame Evelyn said: ‘This is indeed a great honour, which I am delighted to accept’. She spoke with feeling about her early musical education in village schools in Aberdeenshire, where enlightened local authority policies had enabled her to receive free tuition on both piano and percussion – if cost considerations had forced her parents to choose only one, it might not have been percussion. She urged the ISM to maintain its pressure on the government to ensure that top-quality music teaching was available to all schoolchildren, and vowed to continue her personal campaign to the same end.
Dr David Smith, the ISM’s East Scotland Regional Councillor, who had nominated Dame Evelyn for the DMA, said:
‘Dame Evelyn was born and brought up in rural Aberdeenshire, where she attended Ellon Academy before studying at the RAM. She is the first musician to have managed to sustain a full-time performing career as a solo percussionist: this has taken her around the world, typically performing in 100 concerts per year. She displays a dynamic flair in performance, and has acted as an inspiration for a generation of young percussionists. She is also in demand as a teacher, giving frequent masterclasses wherever she travels. As a champion of new music, she has commissioned 145 new percussion works from the world’s most eminent composers, including concertos and solo percussion pieces, greatly enriching the repertory. She has successfully crossed the boundaries of ‘art’ and ‘popular’ music, working with a wide and disparate array of artists: for example, she has collaborated in projects involving music for film, TV and radio, has explored improvised sound worlds, and composed songs with the vocalist Björk. She has received many accolades for her playing, including a Grammy Award in 1989 for a recording of Bartok’s Sonata for Two Pianos & Percussion. A woman of strongly held views and convictions, she often challenges established orthodoxy. She has received honorary doctorates from 15 UK universities, and was appointed OBE in 1993 and DBE in 2007.’
The ISM established its Distinguished Musician Award in 1976, as a means by which the profession could acknowledge the outstanding contribution of a colleague to British musical life. Previous recipients have been Sir Alexander Gibson, Sir William Walton, Sir Peter Pears, Sir Adrian Boult, James Galway, Jacqueline du Pre, Janet Craxton, Sir Michael Tippett, Sir Reginald Goodall, Sir Charles Groves, Sir Simon Rattle, Norman Del Mar, Witold Lutoslawski, Julian Bream, Sir Colin Davis, George Malcolm, Christopher Hogwood, Sir David Willcocks, Dame Fanny Waterman, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Sir Charles Mackerras, John McCabe, Sir Malcolm Arnold and Pierre Boulez.
