First deaf artist to sign a recording contract with an international major label

Scottish percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie (UK) began her solo recording career with Rhythm Song on the RCA Victor (USA) label in April 1990. The decade-long partnership also realised albums such as Light in Darkness (1991) and Shadow Behind the Iron Sun (2000). Glennie is profoundly deaf and started losing her hearing at the age of eight. She plays barefoot when she performs, hearing her own instrument and the orchestra by feeling vibrations through the floor and in her own body.

In 2015, Glennie was selected alongside Emmylou Harris as a laureate of Sweden’s Polar Music Prize, previously awarded to the likes of Paul McCartney, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan and Led Zeppelin. “She has widened our understanding of what music is and shown us that listening is only partly to do with our ears,” offered the Stig Anderson Music Award Foundation, who have presented the annual award since 1992.

Glennie led a 1,000-strong drummer ensemble in a performance at the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games in London, and she co-wrote and performed My Spine, from Björk’s 1996 album Telegram (and a B-side for the Icelandic singer’s 1995 single It’s Oh So Quiet).

At the 31st Grammy Awards in 1989, Glennie won Best Chamber Music Performance for Bartok: Sonata for Two Pianos & Percussion, and at the 56th Grammys in 2014, she won Best Classical Instrumental Solo for Corigliano: Conjurer – Concerto for Percussionist & String Orchestra. Glennie, who has reportedly amassed a collection of thousands of percussion instruments from around the world, was born in Methlick, Aberdeenshire, on 19 July 1965.