Medical musicians in landmark concert to celebrate healthcare

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 iconic venue. 

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. 

Over the past two decades, concerts have been held in venues in Bucharest, Budapest, Berlin, Bern, Ljubljana, Nantes, Olomouc, Oslo, Poznan, Rotterdam, Verona and Wiesbaden – as well as Belfast, Birmingham, Edinburgh, London and Manchester in the UK. 

More than 460 musicians from 23 European countries have played with the orchestra during that time. 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. 

The Chair of Trustees is retired Newcastle GP Dave Tomson, who said: 

“We want to pack Sage One 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 for St Oswald’s Hospice, which does so much to help people across the region with life-limiting conditions.”