HEARING SILENCE

 
 

The ability to hear plays such a crucial role in making music that it's almost impossible to imagine how a professional musician feels when they've been diagnosed with a condition called Otosclerosis (progressive deafness). But that is exactly what flautist Elizabeth Petcu is bravely facing.  Like Beethoven, Elizabeth is suffering conductive hearing loss where the bones of the ear fuse together preventing sound from entering and vibrating.  Last year, after 25 years as principle flautist, Elizabeth had to leave her job in the RTE Orchestra.


This documentary lets the audience enter a world where sound plays a crucial but increasingly frustrating role and shows how this musician is dealing with the loss of a vital sense with strength and humour. This is a story of one woman's struggle to express her creativity through sound – despite her limited hearing – and her new relationship with silence.