Evelyn Glennie

Evelyn Glennie's story left me genuinely speechless. Born in Aberdeen in 1965, she is a percussionist who is profoundly deaf, yet she has reached the very summit of her art and won Grammy Awards. Learning that she perceives sound through her body, feet, and bones rather than her ears completely reframed how I think about music itself. A Polar Music Prize laureate and a Dame, she never treated her deafness as an excuse but instead transformed it into a singular sensibility. Few artists embody such defiant creativity, and I hold her in the highest regard.

Name (English)

Evelyn Glennie

Name (Japanese)

エヴェリン・グレニー

Reading

えゔぇりん・ぐれにー

Born

July 19, 1965 (age 61)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Cancer / Snake

Origin

Aberdeen, United Kingdom

Occupation

composer / percussionist / drummer / marimba player / xylophonist

Awards & achievements

• 2007 Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire
• 2015 Polar Music Prize
• 2017 Companion of Honour
• 1988 Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance
• 2013 Grammy Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo
• 1991 Royal Philharmonic Society Award (Instrumentalist)
• 2006 honorary doctorate

• Official sitehttps://evelyn.co.uk
• Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/dameevelynglennie/
• Xhttps://x.com/DameEvelyn
• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn%20Glennie
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%A8%E3%83%B4%E3%82%A7%E3%83%AA%E3%83%B3%E3%83%BB%E3%82%B0%E3%83%AC%E3%83%8B%E3%83%BC
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q239275

Tags

• composer
• percussionist
• drummer

Last updated

2026-06-21

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.