Drummer delivers smashing concert> Barefoot Scot percussive presence

It would be uncannily correct to say that Evelyn Glennie has more rhythm in her little finger than most people have in their whole body. Or perhaps than they have in their whole life. When Glennie performed Friday night to a near-full house at the Maine Center for the Arts, it was clear that she’s got rhythm in every little part of her body.

As a leader and innovator among contemporary percussionists, Glennie’s musical world is, in fact, based on rhythms. As a deaf musician, her rhythm is based on what she actually feels when she creates sound. So that she may absorb as much vibration as possible, she performs barefoot, and one might guess that Glennie’s aggressive and massively loud style is the result of reaching as far as possible for those vibrations.

But it’s not as if Glennie simply pounded her way through two 45-minute sets of music played on a range of percussion instruments, including piano. The colors of her sound ranged from a highly energetic virtuosity on the snare drum to an imagistic lyricism on four flower pots.

Dressed all in white and illuminated by spotlights, Glennie combined an ethereal exterior with formidable musicianship. Her repertoire drew from contemporary world music including works by Japanese marimba master Keiko Abe, a bongo piece by New Zealander John Psathas, and a snare drum recital work by Icelander Askell Masson. Her only popular piece was the rock song “Born to Be Wild,” which she raucously played while reciting the lyrics.

Born in 1965 in Scotland, Glennie has made it her life’s mission to bring integrity to the percussion soloist. To that end, she regularly commissions works by percussion composers, and introduces those works through her tours and recordings. In performance, she is clearly a musician’s musician, primarily presenting pieces that are not easily accessible.

Indeed, Glennie can be unnerving as she slaps a drum or squats to tap the floor or screams out unintelligible vocal accompaniment. In this way, her concerts are experimental and cerebral beyond the average listener’s interest or music education. Her work does not conform to any conventional definitions of entertainment or beauty.

Yet Glennie commands an audience. She is a striking musician who combines intensity with friendliness, intelligence with grace, and talent with invincibility. Though some might find her music self-absorbed, others surely recognize the immense skill of this woman who is both wild and elegant when she creates sound.