From ear to heart – Daniel Genecke broadcasts from Campus Hearing Acoustics

„The ear is the way to the heart“– Voltaire’s famous words decorate the entrance area of the Campus Hearing Acoustics. When Daniel Denecke, audio therapist and singer-songwriter with a hearing-impairment, first visited the campus ten years ago, this quote gave him the inspiration for a song: „From Ear to Heart“. On 21 October 2021, Denecke once again visited the campus, this time the Hearing Device Museum, one of the biggest collections of historical hearing aids and audiological technique in Germany, from where he broadcasted live to a classroom in Lower Saxony.

Together with his „alter ego“ Ludwig van Beethoven, he presented the evolution of hearing-aids to 60 children and teenagers with hearing-impairments. The online event was part of a vacation program organized in co-operation with Lower-Saxony’s Education Center in Hildesheim. „Today is not about the problems and challenges people with hearing-impairments are faced with, but about a gift. A gift made to us by Hearing Acoustics with all these great devices, which help us hear and understand -and thus enable us to be part of so many things “, said Daniel Denecke.

From hearing trumpets to hearing cones, telephonic and pocket devices with tubes and transistors, supported by afh lecturer Esther Kruse, Denecke presented many exhibits and milestones in the history of hearing-aids, up to modern, state-of-the-art hearing systems, which are basically digital minicomputers. And of course, Denecke also took the opportunity to sing a few songs.