Preparing for their big day at the Bridgewater Hall is an exhausting business. For the children at Alma Park Primary School in Levenshulme are not just singing, they are signing – explaining the lyrics in British Sign Language. And that means lots of waving arms and the odd bit of jumping up and down.

Coaching them at this workshop, and pounding away at the piano when occasion demands, is Dr Paul Whittaker, a graduate of music from Oxford despite hearing impairment so severe that, he says, nothing short of an earthquake would wake him at night.

“They all get something out of it,” Whittaker says of this choir of hearing and deaf children. “Everyone seems to be able to take part at whatever level suits them. It’s a great opportunity for hearing children to learn about sign language, and express themselves through that, and it’s a fantastic opportunity for deaf children to have a go at singing. Some of them struggle a wee bit with the language, but they certainly have a go. And they’re definitely enthusiastic. They may not do everything we want all of the time, but everybody does something right some of the time.”

On Tuesday May 24, the children of Alma Park come together with children from Thorn Grove Primary School, Cheadle Hulme, and Thomasson Memorial School, Bolton, to form a 120-strong choir of deaf and hearing children, on stage at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester. In an initiative by the Bridgewater Hall Community Education Trust, delivered by Music And The Deaf, the charity founded by Whittaker, the children will sing and sign a collection of songs written specially by composer Will Mace.

Several of the children have hearing aids, some have cochlear implants – the electronic device that bypasses damaged parts of the ear to directly stimulate the auditory nerve.

Alma Park has, for 16 years, devoted special resources to a handful of hearing-impaired children on the school roll. Hearing children learn sign language, and the whole school signs in assembly.

“There are over 20 languages in this school, and this is just one,” says head Pat Treanor.

The obvious question is what does someone with a severe hearing loss get from music?

“What I normally do in this situation is turn the question back on the interviewer and ask you as a hearing person, what does music mean to you and how would you describe it to someone who can’t hear it?” says Whittaker.

“With great difficulty,” I reply

“I can only answer for myself,” he adds. “But it is an incredibly pleasurable experience – you have the vibrations of all the different instruments and pitches that can stimulate you in different ways. When you get all these together, you get this huge sense of fun. Some deaf people with hearing aids can pick up some of what goes on, some may not pick up anything at all, which is where the signing and the visual element of music comes in. When you sign small, that’s quieter; when you’re singing louder, you sign larger.”

Whittaker hails from Huddersfield, which is where Music And The Deaf is based. “I was born with a hearing loss and so I’ve never heard a full piano keyboard; I’ve never heard birds sing; I’ve never heard bagpipes, but maybe that’s a good thing,” he jokes.

Music was all around him in the house as he grew up, and Whittaker began playing piano at the age of seven. He was turned down by a dozen universities before being accepted by Wadham College, Oxford, to study music. He then did post-graduate studies at the Royal Northern College Of Music in Manchester before founding Music And The Deaf.

The most famous deaf musician is percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie, who explains that sound is simply vibrating air that the ear picks up and turns into electrical signals. But touch can do this too. Glennie says she can distinguish different notes according to where she feels them on her body.

“I’ve known Evelyn for about 30 years and we have played together on several occasions,” says Whittaker. “I know exactly what she means when she talks of perceiving different instruments and vibrations in different parts of the body. I’m often asked where I perceive different instruments, but I’ve never bothered analysing it in the way Evelyn does. Sometimes I’m slightly facetious and I say I hear the piccolo in my right earlobe...which I don’t. It means something different to every single person.”

Bridging Hands, featuring a choir of children from Alma Park Primary School, Levenshulme, Thorn Grove Primary School, Cheadle Hulme, and Thomasson Memorial School, Bolton, is at the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, on Tuesday May 24 at 6.45pm. Tickets on the door, just £2.

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