Former Deep Purple keyboardist to play first show since cancer news

Last summer, former Deep Purple keyboardist Jon Lord announced that he was fighting cancer and would be taking a break from performing while getting treatment.

Now, Lord has scheduled his first concert appearance since revealing his health news.

A special performance of his 2008 release, “Durham Concerto,” is set for July 6 in Hagen, Germany.

The concert is rounding off Jon’s stretch as this year’s ‘composer in residence’ with the Hagen Philharmonic Orchestra near Dortmund. To this end, the orchestra has been performing several of his pieces over the past few months, most recently a breath taking performance of "From Darkness To Light," which was broadcast by German radio WDR3 on May 15.

About that performance, Jon later wrote to Hagen’s conductor Florian Ludwig:

‘It was a truly wonderful and emotional experience sitting in my house in England and listening to the glorious sounds you were making in Hagen – wanting to be there and yet in a way happy that you could not see me with the tears in my eyes. The piece means a very great deal to me, and you played it as if you had looked into my heart and soul and found what I was thinking and feeling as I wrote it.’

For the concert on July 6, and subject to the continued progress of his recovery from cancer, Jon will play Hammond organ on his Durham Concerto and piano on a further selection of his solo pieces mixed with works by other composers connected to Jon and his music.