The Essay: A Different Way to Listen

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The Essay: A Different Way to Listen: Elizabeth Elliott

Elizabeth Elliott

A Different Way to Listen

BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, A Different Way to Listen, Elizabeth Elliott

Elizabeth Elliott, a talented musician who became deaf, shares her inspiring journey.

Elizabeth Elliott was at music school when she discovered she was losing her hearing. This is her story.

A five-part series of essays that explore the dichotomy between being a deaf professional and working with music. Each essayist tells their own story from across the deaf spectrum, including a sign language performer with a passion for music, a violinist who switched to classical piano after a cochlear implant, and a flautist who uses visual art to describe music to deaf children. From horn players to punchy performance artists, all of the essayists consider music from a deaf perspective with illuminating results. 

From her childhood immersed in music to her early career as a professional violinist, Elizabeth Elliott's passion for classical music endured even as she became deaf. Despite the shock of losing her hearing, she muses on how she found solace in teaching and performing in smaller groups, before concentrating on bringing up her young family.

In middle age, she had a cochlear implant fitted, and she describes how this felt - reclaiming her ability to hear note by musical note. Filling us all in with a very different way to listen, Elizabeth details how through careful trial and error she pieces together a piano piece and drills herself to perform it to a high standard. She shares with us how it felt to once again be able to perform music publicly, through dedication and technology.

A Different Way to Listen is produced by Sophie Allen and Emma Glassar with Mark Rickards as Executive Producer. It is a Flashing Lights Media production for BBC Radio 3. A British Sign Language version was filmed, edited and subtitled by Fifi Garfield.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Five essayists explore the dichotomy of being a deaf professional working with music.

From horn players to punchy performance artists, five essayists explore the dichotomy of being a deaf professional working with music - with illuminating results.

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