Award-winning British-Jamaican writer Raymond Antrobus was first diagnosed as deaf at the age of seven. He discovered he had missing sounds – bird calls, whistles, kettles, alarms. Teachers thought he was slow and disruptive; some friends didn’t believe he was deaf at all.
The Quiet Ear tells the story of Antrobus’ childhood, his first experience using hearing aids, his troubled adolescence and the parallel mainstream and deaf education systems.
The world’s premier solo percussionist, Dame Evelyn Glennie, also performs an evocative, improvised soundscape to accompany prose written and read live on stage by Antrobus. Together, they offer a unique, collaborative experience, where words and percussion merge to captivate the audience’s senses and emotions.