“I love the sounds these musicians make.” Fanfare
“Fascinating sounds crossing hemispheres, epochs and cultures.” The Times; “Am I ecstatic about Ecstatic Drumbeat? You bet.” Fanfare; “Anyone who loves good quality percussion playing or who has an affinity for Chinese culture will enjoy this a great deal.” AudAud.com
Appearing with leading orchestras and conductors around the world, Evelyn Glennie has also collaborated with musicians as diverse as Emmanuel Ax, the King’s Singers and Björk. Another unexpected partner is the Taipei Chinese Orchestra, with which she first performed at the 2009 Deaflympics. Returning to Taiwan a year later, she recorded the present disc of original compositions and arrangements for percussion and Chinese orchestra. The programme is wide–ranging in geographical terms, with works by composers from the Far East, as well as by German-based Nebojša Živković, whose duo Born to Beat Wild for bass drum and trumpet here is performed with a suona, ‘Chinese oboe’, replacing the trumpet. But the disc also spans a vast distance in time, in that the final work, Emperor Qin Crushing the Battle Formations, is a reworking by the composer Yiu-Kwong Chung of an ancient score first performed in the year 627 at the court of the second Tang Emperor. Ecstatic Drumbeat is the latest of four discs that present collaborations between the Taipei Chinese Orchestra and soloists from a Western tradition, with Evelyn Glennie following in the footsteps of flutist Sharon Bezaly, saxophonist Claude Delangle and trombone player Christian Lindberg on her own oriental journey.
