SALEM — Dirk Hillyer has a secret.
The founder and conductor of the Hillyer Festival Orchestra, which will perform here tomorrow before an anticipated tens of thousands, is deaf in one ear.
Hillyer hesitated, at first, when asked to talk about his loss of hearing. Although he has a long list of accomplishments in music, including playing French horn with the Boston Lyric Opera, he was initially reluctant to publicly discuss a physical disability so potentially devastating to a musician.
"It's hard," he said. "I work with it every day."
Although he doesn't know for certain, Hillyer believes he lost the hearing in his right ear after contracting scarlet fever at the age of 2. But he was pushed along, almost drawn to music, by a father who had a college jazz band and a mother who sang light opera in community theater.
He also had talent.
At age 13, he was playing with the Portland Youth Philharmonic in Oregon. At 16, he won a state contest in the French horn, which, incredibly, emitted its sound next to his right ear. By 18, he was playing solos during the orchestra's tour of Europe.
As a boy in Oregon, Hillyer said, he largely ignored the hearing loss. "I had so much fun in junior high school and high school ... I didn't really notice it much."
It became more of an issue, he said, the deeper he delved into music. He credits a French horn teacher at the New England Conservatory of Music, who was aware of his disability, with being an anchor and inspiration.
"He saved me from utter despair," he said.
Over time, Hillyer became a more skilled and knowledgeable musician and also learned to compensate. His left ear, he felt, became stronger.
"There's no accounting for the miracle of the human body," he said.
Hillyer, who has a well-developed sense of humor, is able to joke about his hearing loss. At one point, he said, "I always hear my French horn at a distance, sort of how every man wishes he could hear his ex-wife."
The music professor at Salem State College said most of his students are aware of the situation.
"I kid with my students," he said. "I (tell them) if I turn one way to the board, you can talk about me behind my back, but if I turn the other way I'll hear every little whisper in your mind."
As a conductor, he also has learned to adjust.
With a laugh, Hillyer said, "When I turn to the right, I'm not just cuing the cellos, I'm checking to see if I can hear them."
Over his career on the North Shore, Hillyer has brought music to thousands in Peabody, Marblehead, Salem and other communities.
The expected 40,000 who come here tomorrow will be treated to a two-hour pops concert that may be unrivaled on the North Shore. The Hillyer Festival Orchestra has musicians who have played with top orchestras like the Boston Pops, and singers who have performed at Opera Boston and other prestigious venues.
It also has a smiling conductor in a white dinner jacket who lost the hearing in one ear as a little boy, a bad break he calls a "blessed curse," a medical event he triumphed over with the help of parents, friends, teachers and his own will to succeed.
But to Dirk Hillyer, it's really no big deal.
"I don't see myself in any other light," he said, "than a regular guy doing his best with what he loves."
If you go
What: Fourth of July concert by the Hillyer Festival Orchestra
When: Festivities tomorrow starting at 4 p.m.; opening ceremonies at 7:15 p.m., followed by concert; fireworks at 9:15 p.m.
Where: Derby Wharf
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