Healthcare workers and other live music fans are being invited to a landmark concert by doctors from across Europe in Gateshead next month.
Two hundred healthcare workers are combining to form the European Doctors’ Orchestra and Northern Healthcare Choir to perform a Sunday afternoon programme of classical music at The Glasshouse.
The celebration of life and healthcare at The Glasshouse International Centre for Music is the orchestra’s 20th anniversary concert and is raising funds for St Oswald’s Hospice in Newcastle.
Formed by Hungarian plastic surgeon Miklos Pohl to offer medical musicians from across Europe the opportunity to join for weekends of music making, EDO gained support from a group of doctors and professional conductor Rupert Bond for an inaugural event in 2004 in London.
Today the European Doctors’ Orchestra is a full symphony orchestra of about 100 players, who perform at least two public charity concerts a year.
More than 460 musicians from 23 European countries have played with the orchestra and in the last decade, EDO has raised over £250,000 for more than 25 charities
across the continent.
Players pay their own travel and accommodation costs and share the concert costs via a subscription for each concert. Administrative duties are shared by players, overseen by a board of player trustees.
Chair of trustees is retired Newcastle GP Dave Tomson. He said: “We want to pack the venue with healthcare staff from across the North East and Cumbria and beyond to join us as we celebrate all we do for our patients.
“We all spend our working life caring for others; we want colleagues to enjoy a Sunday afternoon off and let the European Doctors Orchestra and Northern Healthcare Choir entertain them.
“Our ambition is to attract a 1,000-strong audience so we can raise a record sum in our 20th anniversary concert.
The concert, at 3pm on Sunday November 10, will be the EDO’s third visit to Gateshead, following gigs in 2011 and 2016 at the former Sage venue.
It will feature a programme of music led by conductor Constança Simas including Ravel, Poulenc, Gershwin, Copland and a new commission by award-winning composer Elena KatsChernin – with guest soprano Jessica Cale.
