Caption to Daily News news photo
Reaching out to the Deaf
The KZN Philharmonic Orchestra performs its third concert in the World Symphony Series Summer Season on Thursday 8 March in the Playhouse Opera with an all-Beethoven programme. Soloist for the evening is German violinist, Daniel Röhn, under the baton of Arjan Tien.
Prolific German composer Ludwig van Beethoven is revered as one of the most famous and influential of all composers. What is equally significant is that much of his musical legacy was composed and performed while he was hard-of-hearing and then, by the last decade of his life, while he was almost completely deaf.
It is appropriate then, that the orchestra honours Beethoven’s work during Hearing Awareness Week – which started with World Hearing Day on 3 March and ends with Talk Sign on Friday 9 March.
Pictured is violinist Daniel Röhn with former Miss Deaf SA, Mbali Nkosi – an ambassador for ICan (an organisation which trains People with Disabilities: PWD) and Khulisani (an organisation which places PWD in the workplace). They are pictured at the Denis Hurley Centre – one of ICan / Khulisani’s proactive partner organisations which employs various PWD including their tour guide who is totally blind. The next step is setting up a training café staffed by adults who are Deaf.
Daniel and Mbali are making the universal Sign Language sign for “music” which mimics a conductor conducting.
