29/08/2024
The first part of the chapter begins with a seventeen-year-old girl who was very nervous about her first day at the famous Royal Academy of Music, in London. She was deaf, which was a huge challenge in her life. Evelyn Glennie was from Scotland. When she was eight-year-old, her mother realized that her hearing ability was becoming weak. She hid that from her friends and teachers. By the time she turned eleven, Evelyn’s disability became very evident to everyone. The headmistress of the school asked her mother to take her to a specialist. Her mother was told that her hearing loss was due to gradual nerve damage. She was advised to wear a hearing aid. Despite her inability, Evelyn was determined to live a normal life. She wanted to pursue music. One day she saw a girl who was playing the xylophone. She too wanted to play it. Ron Forbes, a percussionist, recognized her talent and told her not to listen through her ears. He advised her to feel the music through other senses. At that moment, Evelyn could sense that she could feel the higher drum from the waist up and the lower drums from the waist bottom. She learned to open her mind and body to different sounds. Since then, she has never looked back. She travelled across the United Kingdom with a youth orchestra. She was determined to make music her life. She auditioned for the Royal Academy of Music, in London by playing the xylophone. She scored the highest grades in the history of the academy. She moved from an orchestral group to solo performances. At the end of the three years’ course, she earned most of the top awards. She did not feel proud of her achievements; instead, she said that if one knew one’s goal then one could achieve that. She became the world’s topmost multi-percussionist and she mastered over one thousand instruments. Music poured through every part of Evelyn’s body. She always felt the sound of the xylophone passing up the stick into her fingertips. She felt the beat of the drums by leaning on them. She removed her shoes on a wooden platform to feel the vibrations in her body. She was awarded the most famous award of the Royal Philharmonic Society, the Soloist Award in 1991. She worked harder than a workaholic and she performed at many concerts. She also performed in prisons and hospitals. She was an inspiration for many disabled people.
