Ludwig's resonance

Presentation

Ludwig's resonance was born from a simple conviction: musical excellence should be a commons, reaching even those who feel most excluded from it today. More than 10 million people in France, over 60 million in Europe and 1.5 billion worldwide live with hearing loss; for many of them music stops being a possible pleasure. 72% of hearing-impaired people who wear hearing aids say they have reduced their listening to music, because devices designed for speech flatten its nuances and textures and do not restore the full musical spectrum.

The project takes its name and its inspiration from Ludwig van Beethoven, who composed his Ninth Symphony almost entirely deaf. In his 1802 Heiligenstadt Testament he confessed the loss of "a sense which I once possessed in the highest perfection". The project directly inherits this figure — and stands with all the musicians and music lovers who keep creating and listening despite hearing loss.

Led by the Orchestre de chambre de Paris with Institut reConnect / Institut Pasteur (CeRIAH), Ludwig's resonance is a listening laboratory where a composer, orchestra musicians, audiologists and hard-of-hearing participants invent together an orchestral writing that can be shared by impaired and hearing ears alike. The two-year process culminates in a concert at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in mid-2027, marking the bicentenary of Beethoven's death.

Artistic Team

Ludwig's resonance unites an artistic team and a scientific team around a shared mission. Orchestre de chambre de Paris — initiator and artistic lead. Frédéric Morando, CEO; Thomas Hengelbrock, Music Director; Christoph Altstaedt, conductor of the concert; 43 permanent musicians. Labelled "Orchestre national en région", resident at the Philharmonie de Paris, recognised for its citizen commitment to all audiences and for a strong culture of education and transmission through its three academies (Young Women Composers; "Play & Conduct"; and the Academy with the Conservatoire de Paris / CNSMD). Aline Gorisse, composer — composer of the new work premiered in mid-2027, from the orchestra's Academy for Young Women Composers. She writes in workshop residence, using an iterative score born from the participants' listening. She is accompanied by composer-curator Yves Chauris, who led several upstream conception sessions with the project's partners. Institut reConnect / Institut Pasteur — directed by Anne-Lise Giraud. Its laboratory CeRIAH (Center for Research and Innovation in Human Audiology), led by Prof. Paul Avan, scientific director of the project, designs and runs the scientific protocol, with neuropsychologist Séverine Samson and AI physicist Jean-Baptiste Masson. Alice de Plunkett (Institut Pasteur) coordinates strategy and the Arts, Sciences & Society programme. Patient-experts — a panel of over 200 deaf and hard-of-hearing people whose lived experience shapes the creation.

Partners