Violinist Nigel Kennedy Says He was Partly Deaf After COVID-19 Vaccine 

Kennedy has revealed that he was left partly deaf for three months

Violinist Nigel Kennedy recently revealed that he experienced partial deafness for about three months, which coincided with having his third COVID-19 vaccine in 2021, The Guardian reports. 

He is not certain that the vaccination alone was to blame but explained that he knew of another musician who had similarly lost his hearing. His hearing loss also coincided with the breaking of his left little finger while trying to control his large dog.

Among the symptoms Kennedy experienced was extreme fatigue: “I turned into a zombie,” he said. “I’d be nodding off, whatever I was doing … I’d wake up and think: ‘thank God I haven’t dropped the violin’, if I’d had it in my hand … That’s something which had never happened to me before.”

“[The hearing loss was] more to do with the overtones and the intonation [than the volume level],” he added. “I didn’t want to play with colleagues while I was playing out of tune. I was able to work on my intonation and get my hearing back. Maybe if I wasn’t a musician I wouldn’t really have got the hearing back because, in music, you’re teaching yourself to listen all the time.

Since then, he has trained himself to hear overtones and undertones of notes once again.

“I built it from the ground upwards again, but I think now I’ve got a better intonation than I had before,” he continued. “If you’re faced with a dilemma like that, you can’t really panic about it because all you can do is the best to overcome the problem.”

Kennedy has been reluctant to discuss the hearing loss until now, and wanted to make sure he “really was playing in tune” before coming out with the incident.

“It was a sensitive issue and I didn’t want everyone coming to my concert thinking ‘[he’s] playing out of tune,’” he explained. “I don’t mind people knowing now, because I’m playing right bang in the middle of the notes. It’s all right now. I don’t think anyone could really fault my intonation. I think it’s much better than it was before.

“There might be some other musicians who suffered from the same thing … It’s beyond just musicians. If you’re suddenly feeling like you’re catatonic at four o’clock every day, I’m sure that’s happened to a lot of people.”

One of the best-selling classical violinists of all time, Kennedy has specialized in genre-bending performances from classical music to jazz and rock.

Kennedy’s upcoming projects include his “Concert for peace, acceptance and forgiveness” with the vocalist and composer Cleveland Watkiss and others, on January 29, 2025, at the Barbican. 

(Image courtesy: Nigel Kennedy/Facebook)