THE Australian plastic surgeon Miklos Pohl, an enthusiastic chamber-music player at summer music camps for many years, always noted the disproportionate number of doctors taking part — not only there but also in the chamber-orchestra in Hobart, his home town. This led to his idea of a doctors' orchestra, full-symphony size and covering the entire country; the idea became reality, and he founded the Australian Doctors' Orchestra (ADO) in 1993, with its first concert being given in Melbourne Town Hall that year.
Since then the orchestra, now a fact of Australian musical life, has met yearly to rehearse intensively over a weekend, including a couple of social events, and finishing with a concert featuring a well-known soloist. Its personnel reflects a cross-section of the entire medical community and there is huge enthusiasm and commitment from its players, usually numbering well over 100. Its concerts are given in different cities each year, and it has raised — with sponsorship — AUS$ 250 000 for medical charities.
Miklos Pohl now works in London as a consultant at St George's Hospital. He has established the European Doctors' Orchestra on similar lines to the ADO, planning to give two annual concerts, one in this country and the other abroad in another European city. Sponsorship is being sought, and the first concert will be on Sunday 21 November 2004 with 2 days of rehearsal starting on Friday 19 November, plus the usual social programme. The venue will be the Blackheath Concert Hall (used for recording by many professional orchestras because of its excellent acoustic). Our soloist will be the violinist Elizabeth Wallfisch, playing the Beethoven concerto, and the programme will include Rossini's overture ‘The Thieving Magpie', and Brahms’ Second Symphony. Our conductor will be Rupert Bond, who is on the staff of Trinity College of Music and is founder-conductor of the Docklands Sinfonietta. We will be supporting Whizz-kidz, a charity that supplies equipment and training for disabled children to become mobile.
This is a wonderful opportunity for medical musicians to come together; to make music; to re-charge their spiritual batteries and — in so doing — help to make their (and our) world a better place. Contact us through the website (http://www.edo.uk.net), and plan your diaries now. We look forward to meeting up in November.
- © British Journal of General Practice, 2004.
