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Sometime in 2020, his doctor told him he seemed to have reduced hearing, Boland said, but he didn\u2019t think much about it. Then, in 2021, he got COVID-19 three times.<\/p>\n
\u201cI woke up one morning and it felt like everything was underwater. I was like, ‘What is happening,’ really upset.\u201d<\/p>\n
An audiologist diagnosed Boland with sensorineural hearing loss in both ears; it\u2019s a common condition that can follow damage to the inner ear\u2019s nerve endings.<\/p>\n
His initial response was not positive \u2014 he thought his chance at a music career was ruined. Even Boland\u2019s mother, who\u2019s always been supportive, sat him down and suggested maybe he should find another pursuit.<\/p>\n
But when he went to the piano and put his head down on it to feel the vibrations, he said, \u201cI found that I can hear the music in my head, and I think that\u2019s something that can only be given from God.\u201d<\/p>\n
That wasn\u2019t his only gift. While adjusting to life with whatever sound he could get from hearing aids, Boland realized things that might once have seemed like challenges were now assets in disguise.<\/p>\n
As someone on the autism spectrum, Boland sometimes finds it hard to make eye contact, so as a kid he started watching people’s lips instead. He also found it interesting to see how their mouths pronounced the words, so picking up lip reading was a snap.<\/p>\n And years before the sounds in his ears began to fade, Boland had learned American Sign Language to better communicate with a hard-of-hearing friend.<\/p>\n Those skills allowed him to rapidly adjust to his new, quieter reality \u2013 and maybe that\u2019s why people Boland sings with say they didn\u2019t initially realize he was deaf. But recently, he\u2019s opened up about it and even provided ASL interpretation for a recent concert, Long Beach Camerata Singers Artistic Director James Bass said.<\/p>\n In the classically-focused group, a fluctuating chorus of about 70 to 90 vocalists, \u201cthe dynamic is that people look at him and say, \u2018wow, I\u2019m not dealing with that extra thing that he\u2019s having to deal with \u2013 maybe I should sit up a little straighter and work a little harder,\u201d Bass said.<\/p>\n Like everyone in the Camerata Singers, Boland earned his place by auditioning. But while it\u2019s a selective group, Bass and group president Jan Hower are proud to say it represents the Long Beach community.<\/p>\n Apart from a paid professional corps of about two dozen singers, Hower said, everyone else is a music lover with a day job.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have real estate agents, we have a music store owner, we have lab technicians and engineers,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n And now they have Boland, who\u2019s ready to do whatever it takes to forge a career in music, perhaps as a composer or a conductor. His backup plan is to study medicine and work as a physician assistant.<\/p>\n Boland said he appreciates music in different ways now that he can\u2019t hear it as he used to \u2013 he pays more attention to the story behind it, and he\u2019s learning to understand the connection between notes on a page and the quivering of the air when they\u2019re played or sung.<\/p>\n He hopes his experience and others like it will help light the way for people who get a diagnosis of hearing loss and feel despair.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m like, have you ever thought about listening to music just sitting on the floor and feeling the vibrations, line after line, or walking around with vibrating headphones and just going through and conducting through to feel where you want to shape that music?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it really puts into perspective the power and the story that music has to offer, but also the humanness of us all, that we are all interconnected.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/hi-lo\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2023\/12\/DEAF_6428.jpg\")
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