Evan, 10, is focused, his big eyes glued to his annotated score. He shuffles his feet to give himself courage, puffs out his cheeks, the first notes escape from his flute. He is in his bubble. Its melody fits with the violas of Léandre, 11 years old, and Sacha, 12 years old, and the cello of Alexandre, 13 years old.
These four musical children are profoundly deaf from birth and, for the most part, had never listened to or played music in their lives before last year. With other hearing instrumentalists of their age and professional artists, they form “les Colibris”, the very first deaf music orchestra in the world.
Very young, they were operated on to receive a cochlear implant with electrodes fixed behind the ear, connected to a receiver which helps restore, in part, hearing by stimulating the auditory nerve. “This device, with a lot of training and rehabilitation, allows you to speak and distinguish conversations more or less normally, but it stops there in most cases.“, explains Frédéric Isoletta, Alexandre’s father, professional pianist and conductor at the regional Pierre-Barbizet Conservatory.
He is at the origin of the creation of this unique and pioneering orchestra born in Marseille.
