MUSIC
AN EAR FOR
MUSIC HOW A YOUNG MANDOLIN PLAYER OVERCAME HEARING LOSS B Y D O L LY R . S I C K L E S
S
PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOHN MICHAEL SIMPSON
even years ago when Alex Meredith was 15, he woke up and could not hear in his right ear. “It was like an echo,” Alex says. At first, doctors thought it was an ear infection caused by a virus. “We went to see specialists, and they tried to do a bunch of stuff to reverse it – oral steroids, injections into my ear drum – but nothing worked.” Within days, Alex’s hearing went away completely, and he joined a list of musicians with hearing loss, like Ludwig van Beethoven, Pete Townshend, Will.i.am, Ozzy Osbourne, Chris Martin and Neil Young. At the time, he’d only been playing mandolin for about a year and was still so new to the instrument that he never put much thought on the before versus the after. “Not a lot has changed in the way music sounds to me now,” Alex says, “except my hearing is mono now. It’s hard
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CHATHAM MAGAZINE
SUMMER 2022
Alex stands in front of the Meadow Stage at Shakori Hills where he plays and teaches middleschoolers at the Junior Appalachian Musicians program in Chatham County.