It began 3 years ago, when more than 60 doctors from all over Europe took an idea on trust and turned up for the first rehearsal in a church hall in south London. They worked on a Rossini overture, the Beethoven violin concerto and Brahms Second Symphony. After 2.5 days of rehearsals, they performed this programme at a concert in Blackheath; the concert was a sell-out success, and the European Doctors Orchestra was born.
Since then, it has given two concerts each year — one in London and the other on the continent, always in aid of a childrens' charity, and invariably with sellout success. With its title affectionately abbreviated acronymically to EDO, the orchestra has become a twice-yearly musical focus for an increasing number of doctors and its meetings are wonderful reunions with friendships, old and new, cemented by music. Audit, facilitation, management, the idiocies of the most recent new contract, the fragmentation of the service, the postgraduate training fiasco — all these are banished for a marvellous weekend of music making which, truly, is balm to the soul.
Our schedule has taken us from the Duke's Hall of London's Royal Academy of Music to the Athaneum in Bucharest, to the Great Hall of the Liszt Academy in Budapest. As the programmes have become more taxing, so does the orchestra shrug collectively in amused disbelief as it hears what it is expected to play next — as, for example, in this summer's concert in the beautiful Berlin Konzerthaus. We played Berlioz Carnaval Romain overture, a fizzing orchestral showpiece if ever there was one; the orchestra, greatly scaled down — and horribly exposed — accompanied the Strauss oboe concerto, and the concert ended with Mahler's First Symphony. For most of us, this was the high point of the entire weekend with many united in tears at its beauty and tragedy, its irony and angst. In November we return, for the third time, to the Duke's Hall with another huge programme—Vaughan Williams' overture, The Wasps; the Dvorak Cello concerto (in which our soloist is Gemma Rosefield, this year's winner of the Pierre Fournier Award), and Schubert Ninth Symphony (The Great), with our concert prefaced by the usual hectic hard work of 2.5 days of intensive rehearsal.
So, EDO … a source of delight for so many, from so many countries; it is the embodiment of all the exciting camaraderie and fun of music-making. You can find out more about us on our website www.edo.uk.net; better still, come to the concert.
- © British Journal of General Practice, 2007.
