A composer interested in hearing: now that’s not new: all composers in some ways or others, we surely hope, are interested in hearing. Much less seems to be the composers interested in the loss of hearing, unless it’s their own.

* * *

Reading about deafness, I eventually run into the work of British deaf scholar, author and activist Paddy Ladd, and I thus discovered “deafhood”, a term he coined in 1993 to describe a “positive” acceptance to the condition of deafness and hearing disabilities.

In his 2003 book Understanding Deaf Culture: In Search of Deafhood, he writes: “Deafhood is not seen as a finite state but as a process by which deaf individuals come to actualize their deaf identity, positing that those individuals construct that identity around several differently ordered set of priorities and principles, which are affected by various factors such as nations, era and class being equally important”. As mentioned above, the usual response of deaf or partially deaf people to their condition is to isolate themselves, becoming depressed and paranoid. In stark contrasts with this reaction, Ladd’s positive affirmation made me wish his book was translated into Italian so that my dad could read it.