 Hello and a big welcome to Sound Sensation, I'm Nia. And I'm Peter. And together we're kicking off this online music festival which is all about celebrating hearing implant users. Yes, we've got events coming from all over the world. There are live performances from Japan, concerts from India, China, Italy, Egypt, Kazakhstan. It's a show filled with interviews and insights. Workshops for hearing professionals and hearing implant users. And my personal favourite, a grand finale show in Vienna, Austria, starring some really inspiring musicians with hearing implants. All of that is free and available to stream online wherever in the world you're set. Tell you what Peter, it's going to be a packed three days. It certainly will be. But it's something at Medell that we are very excited by. Because music has been a big part of our company from the very beginning. That's true and we certainly know how much talent is out there among our hearing implant users. Just take a look at this. Honestly, it's so inspiring to see that footage. Yes, it's amazing to see that people can enjoy music at such a high level. And of course it's down to their talents and hard work. But also the technology. After all, we must remember that cochlear implants were the first technology to restore a human sense. And here is the woman behind that technology. Our CEO and a pioneer of the modern cochlear implant. Engelborg Hochmeier. Hi, lovely to see you. Great having you in the show. Thank you so much. Please take a seat. It is truly a great honour having you on our show today. So I just wanted to ask you a few questions together with Nia. The first modern cochlear implant that you pioneered was implanted in 1977. So how does it make you feel today if you see how people enjoy music through their cochlear implants? Well, honestly, it's one of the highlights really to see how people who received an implant either many years ago or more recently can indeed enjoy music with these devices. Beautiful. That's true, actually. So if we go back to the beginning, a cochlear implant started with lip reading and then open speech understanding followed. So could you ever imagine that you as a company would be holding a global music festival? Well, many years ago, certainly not. In recent years, it became more likely, really. But it was a conscious effort to make the sound signals sound more natural, of course. Is there a special approach medal takes when it comes to trying to give music appreciation to patients and to implanted people? Well, there are certain features of the cochlear implant systems that are actually quite essential to reach music enjoyment. And those are to cover the entire cochlear with input, which means if you can't hear anything anymore, a really long electrode. And if you have some residual hearing, it means to choose the right electrode. And then, of course, to administer the best signal to these electrodes. Both aspects are really important for music enjoyment. And just to maybe glimpse into the future, is there anything you could tell us where you personally would see the technology going? Well, for sure, we will try to make the sound that these devices produce more and more and more natural. Such that music enjoyment, for example, becomes real for most of the users. So you've already touched on this a little bit. But why is music such an important topic for Medell? Well, in our mission, it says that we want to overcome hearing loss as a barrier to communication and to quality of life. And of course, music enjoyment is a big part of a quality of life. As well. OK, so if we look a little bit further into rehabilitation, how important is this for music appreciation? Yeah, music rehabilitation is important. And by training music, you can reach a lot better music appreciation. And so we are especially happy about a cooperation with Melodia that has started recently. And Melodia is a music training app, which in particular allows people to start at very different levels from not being musical at all to being quite experienced with music. And then they take you there and allow you to train and make a lot of progress into the direction of better and better music appreciation. It's actually great that you mentioned this because for the entire festival, there is a dedicated session that we actually dedicated to Melodia, to the software. And we also have the CEO and founder of Melodia, Bastian Senak, with us in Sun Sensation, the show. It's going to be very interesting and nice. And following on this theme, does Metal offer any other resources or tools to help implant recipients appreciate music? Yes, we have held a number of music workshops. And in fact, we help therapists to offer music training and also with children, with people of all ages, in fact. And as you know, and I can see you're very aware, music is a very important role, basically in everybody's life in some form. If we look at you, I believe you grew up in Vienna. So was there anything that stood out growing up in a country like Austria and a city like Vienna where music was prominent? Well, of course, Vienna is the city of music and it's no wonder that the cochlear implant started there. It's very good point. And myself, I live in Innsbruck now. But every year, I go and enjoy the black and white balls in the whole book there. Well, of course, music is a big element of the enjoyment. That's right. Lovely. There is beautiful balls there, actually, that they have in Vienna. And this is, of course, also a lot of live performances. And it actually brings me to the point that, especially during these shows that we're going to do, and especially at the grand finale, the show in Vienna, we have some amazing acts coming up. There is a 12-year-old singer by the name of Xingis Avogibayev, who actually started singing after receiving a cochlear implant. We have an oboeist who thought that he would never be able to play the oboe again before receiving the cochlear implant. This is Russell Tyler. And so looking at sound sensation itself, which part are you most looking forward into this? Oh, no, there is no particular part I'm most looking forward to. It's the whole series of events. And I hope people will participate in most of them to get the big picture about what's possible today and how do implant users really enjoy music. That's great. That's certainly something that I think that everybody watching and watching the next three days are going to see really the achievements and what's possible with the CI in respect to music. OK, so there is so much coming up, as you've said, and it's hard to know where to start. But we will take a look at the agenda in a moment. But before we do, I'd like to say a big thank you for you to coming on. It's been a pleasure. It's been amazing having you. Thank you so much. We definitely could talk for hours and hours. But unfortunately, we're running out of time. Let's look at the real event. Absolutely. Thank you so much for coming and joining us. Have a lovely day. Now let's take a look what you can expect over the next three days. Throughout the festival, we've got regular mini concerts coming in from around the globe. All hearing implant users are assumed. Of course. Then, as already mentioned, we have a little treat for you. Exclusive access to Meludia, a new music training tool for hearing implant users. Learn more about the tool and our special offer in this session. This one is especially for our hearing professionals. We've got three hour long events covering everything from fitting through to music rehabilitation. And if you want to see us through again, then tune into the show. There'll be interviews and exclusive insights and, of course, some more music. We'll also look at the work of Smiling Crocodile, a charity supporting children with hearing loss and complex needs around the world. This is your chance to ask our hearing implant experts anything about hearing implants and music. One for the parents out there. It's a live and interactive workshop with take home tips to help your child get into music. Who knows? Maybe they'll be starring in Sound Sensation 2032. You never know. It's a good point. This is the big one. Streaming from Vienna, we've got performances from guitarist Roy Smith, singer Gingis Agibayev, Laura Kornhonen and Jonas Petersteiner, along with classic musicians Gregor Splonka and Russell Tyler. All of them are incredible musicians who happen to have hearing implants. Yes, and I've heard there might be a couple of famous acts making an appearance. Well, you'll have to wait and see. And we've got the premiere of Virtual Voices and Band. This is an online band made up of hearing implant users from all over the world. The perfect end to a sensational three days of music. And of course, there's shows and side events going on all over the world. You can view them at go.medel.com slash Sound Sensation and stream them for free whenever suits you best. That's all from us for now. We'll be back with Sound Sensation at the show tomorrow. In the meantime, check out the first daily music dose streaming live from the Japan Audiological Society annual conference. Yes, that starts in just a few minutes. Don't miss it. Bye for now.