Dame Evelyn Glennie becomes Patron of Neotists

It gives us great pleasure to announce that solo percussionist and composer Dame Evelyn Glennie has become a patron of Neotists.

Dame Evelyn Glennie is the first person in history to create and sustain a full-time career as a solo percussionist, performing worldwide with the greatest orchestras and artists. Evelyn has commissioned over 200 new works and regularly provides classes to inspire the next generation of musicians.

She had a prominent role in the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games, leading 1,000 drummers at the event and playing a new instrument specifically commissioned by Evelyn called the Glennie Concert Aluphone.

Evelyn was awarded an OBE in 1993 and has over 100 international awards to date, including two GRAMMYs, the Polar Music Prize, the Léonie Sonning Music Prize and the Companion of Honour. She was appointed as the first female President of Help Musicians. Since 2021 she has been Chancellor of Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, Scotland.

Neotist co-founders Clair and Richard met with Evelyn at her office in Huntingdon to make the role official. They were treated to an impromptu tour by the patron of The Evelyn Glennie Collection — a truly amazing resource that includes over 3,800 percussion instruments from all around the world. Most importantly The Collection constructs a timeline of over 4,000 entries that map Dame Evelyn’s career day-by-day in chronological order.

The Collection is undoubtedly a primary in-depth resource detailing the unique journey of Dame Evelyn Glennie that will be available for generations to come. In Evelyn’s own words:

“My career and my life have been about listening in the deepest possible sense. Losing my hearing meant learning how to listen differently, to discover features of sound I hadn’t realised existed. Losing my hearing made me a better listener.”

In 2023 Evelyn continued her life-long mission to ‘Teach the World to Listen’ by establishing a new charitable foundation, The Evelyn Glennie Foundation, bringing her distinctive listening practices, her legacy and her vast career archive together to inspire active, receptive listening, helping to create a society where communication and social cohesion are improved by the act of listening. If you would like to know more about the foundation to support its development visit the website. Information about tours of The Collection can be found here.

Neotists are very grateful to Evelyn for accepting the role of patron and look forward to supporting her continued growth of The Collection as a valuable cultural asset in our home district of Huntingdonshire.