Imagine yourself in Neolithic China, 7,500 years ago.
Around you, people are beating drums made from hollowed-out logs covered with alligator skins. Long before concert halls, the radio, or recording studios, rhythm was already bringing people together to listen and communicate.
Now fast forward several thousand years to last week, in City Lit’s John Lyons Theatre.
That same ancient human instinct was at the centre of Dame Evelyn Glennie’s “in the round” event with City Lit’s Learning Disabilities Percussion Orchestra, where she is Patron.
The renowned percussionist and City Lit Fellow invited the audience to think again about what listening really means. We were encouraged not just to hear, but to feel and notice.
VIDEO: Dame Evelyn Glennie performing a piece on the marimba during the in the round experience
In the round
Walking in, the first thing that caught your eye was the circle. Chairs surrounded percussion instruments of all shapes and sizes. It was hard not to be drawn to the marimba, tam-tam, xylophone or selection of drums waiting to be played.
But what Dame Evelyn really wanted us to focus on was a drumstick.
“I can just look at a stick and assume [it can only do one thing]” she said, “but each part has its colour.”
She showed how changing the part of the stick used to strike the drum could alter the sound. A small shift in touch changed what message the sound was conveying.
Dame Evelyn’s point? Not assuming is also a form of listening.
She made the same argument with another instrument – a waterphone. She explained that its instructions warned against creating high harmonic sounds.
“I thought to myself that’s curious,” she said, “as a sound creator, I want to know about those high screechy sounds.” And it’s a good job she did.
She ran a bow along the instrument, creating a high-pitched, eerie, unnerving sound. It sounded like something from a classic horror film.
Television producer Lynda La Plante thought so too. After hearing Dame Evelyn play the waterphone in the late 1990s, she brought her in to compose for the ITV crime drama Trial and Retribution. Dame Evelyn’s work later earned a BAFTA nomination.
What does listening mean to you?
The most moving part of the evening came from City Lit’s Learning Disabilities Percussion Orchestra. Having written a piece especially for the event, members had been asked a question: ‘what does listening mean to you?’
Under the guidance of conductor and tutor Alex Thomas, they created sections of music shaped by their own answers. Performing alongside students from the Royal Academy of Music’s Open Academy, they made the theme of listening feel personal and intimate.
One moment felt particularly poignant. A member of the Orchestra, who is blind, answered the question by saying:
“I can’t see. Listening is all I have.”
It was a stark reminder that listening is not a single shared experience. It’s shaped by sight, hearing, touch and each listener’s circumstances.
Dame Evelyn joined the Orchestra on marimba for the final section, bringing the performance to a gentle close.
Listen Up!
The same question – what does listening mean to you? – ran through The Evelyn Glennie Foundation’s wider residency, Listen Up! at City Lit.
For two weeks, instruments from Dame Evelyn’s extensive collection were displayed in the City Lit Gallery, inviting visitors to explore them through touch, vibration, sound and reflection.
Taken together, the performance and exhibition reframed listening. Not simply as hearing, but as a practice of attention: pausing before responding, noticing silence, and approaching difference with curiosity rather than assumption.
It is a lesson that reaches beyond the theatre or the gallery. In our daily lives, listening differently can change how we learn, how we communicate, and how we make space for one another.
Study Music at City Lit
At City Lit, we offer a wide range of piano, singing and instrumental workshops from complete beginners to advanced standard, daytime, evening or weekend.
