Orchestra & Ensemble Event Reviews

Despite the temptation to stay home and catch Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra’s Glennie at Olympus concert streamed live, there was almost a capacity turnout at the Town Hall. John Psathas’ piano and percussion concerto, View from Olympus, is one of New Zealand music’s big successes. Premiered by Dame Evelyn Glennie at the Manchester Commonwealth Games in 2002, it has gone on … Read More

This is an audio only review.

Thursday’s Auckland Philharmonia concert was always going to be one of most sought-after classical concerts in 2014. If you’ve heard of Dame Evelyn Glennie, or better yet seen her in action, you will know she is a world-renowned, exceptionally brilliant percussionist. […] The piece chosen was New Zealand composer John Psathas’ work View from Olympus. Composed with Dame Evelyn in … Read More

The piece, Joan Tower’s “Strike Zones,” was masterfully written and brilliantly performed.  Most captivating were a couple of solos by Glennie (cadenzas if you will).  The first was a virtuoso display on the high hat cymbals.  Later came a powerful and complex build up on the drums. The ever graceful Glennie wasn’t the only percussionist actually.  Toward the end of … Read More

Dame Evelyn’s tour-de-force performance rounded out the concert. She had a massive percussion set-up that included cymbals, vibraphone, marimba, bass drum, several side drums, bongos, bowls and other instruments. The piece, inspired by shamanism, again harkens by to indigenous traditions of Canada, and it has moments that are both rocking/mesmerizing and downright gorgeous. A few moments stick out in my memory: beautiful vibraphone and Bach-like marimba … Read More

Canadian-born Vincent Ho wrote The Shaman Concerto with [Evelyn] in mind, and she was physically and musically the most dazzling thing that could ever be on stage. Her waist-long now white hair did indeed give her the looks of Korean shamans I used to study on the island of Cheju. She walked around the stage to her three ensembles. […] For the … Read More

Ho is the Winnipeg Symphony’s composer in residence, and his concerto […] is swaggering, satisfying and often spectacular. The Shaman opens with a deeply ritualistic “Ritual” movement, with Glennie sliding between three different percussion stations and playing her way through the bulk of her kit for the piece. […] Together, orchestra and soloist produced a dramatically robust sound. Ho uses … Read More

Vincent Ho’s The Shaman: Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra premièred by the WSO in 2011 is a powerhouse work that showcases Scottish dynamo percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie. The mostly older audience of 1,800, impressed by the sheer fury and might of Ho’s three-movement work (with interlude) leapt to their feet in a rousing standing ovation, with cries of bravo for … Read More

The thoroughgoing theatricality of the program [was] supplied mostly by the soloists for whom the works were tailored: Tanya Tagaq, the throat singer, and the ever wizardly percussionist Evelyn Glennie in The Shaman. […] Mr. Ho’s [is a] brilliant and compelling concerto. Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra Conductor: Alexander Mickelthwate Carnegie Hall, New York City 8 May 2014

(Translated from French) Ms. Glennie manages to sing these instruments with a touch of great delicacy allowing it to reach a sublime musicality that transcends the materiality of instruments.