Listening without Ears

*************** A subtitled version of this programme is also available on the programme page on BBC Radio 4 Extra's website ***************

How do people with hearing loss engage with music? Performer Eloise Garland challenges assumptions.

Eloise began to lose her own hearing fifteen years ago. Now aged 23, she's a professional singer, violinist and teacher - and reveals her very personal engagement with sound.

She considers different ways of teaching and appreciating music - some of which might surprise people who aren't deaf - and shares her deep emotional connection to an art form and cultural activity that is so strongly associated with hearing.

Eloise also meets Tarek Atoui, a composer and sound artist who brings together deaf and hearing people to make music with special instruments designed to expand the experience of sound beyond the aural. If music cannot be heard, what are the other ways of listening?

Producer: Steve Urquhart

A Reduced Listening production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in December 2017.

(Image credit: Caroline Lessire).