Zurich, January 2014

Dear Player, Thank you for registering to play in the next EDO concert on 1st June at 5 pm in Bern, Switzerland. We are very much looking forward to welcoming you on 29th May at 5 pm in Zurich for the opening Tutti rehearsal and hope you will enjoy your visit to Switzerland. Regards from the Swiss committee, Eva, Dominic, Dominik and Ralph What to do next

• Please confirm your place by paying your registration fee of £150/€190 by 15th March. If we have not received your fee by then we will have to offer your place to another player on the waiting list. Follow the link for details on how to pay: http://www.europeandoctorsorchestra.com/join-the-edo

• When you pay your registration fee please buy your desired tickets for the Friday and Saturday social events at the same time. There will be a limited number of tickets.

• Once you have done this please send two emails: 1) To your section organiser to let us know whether you will attend any of the social events (see below). 2) To Eugene, the EDO treasurer, at erlewis26@gmail.com telling him that you have paid. Please include your name, instrument, and whether you have paid for the social events plus how many guests you have included.

The currency in Switzerland is the Swiss Franc (CHF). 1£ is roughly CHF1.50; 1€ is about CHF1.25. Accommodation We have reserved rooms at the Courtyard Marriott Hotel at a preferential rate of CHF150 per single room and CHF170 per double room per night including the All-American-Breakfast. Players should be able to get extra nights at the same rate depending on availability. A direct booking line is available: +41 44 564 0340; quote “Aerzteorchester” for the preferential rate. Alternatively, players can make a reservation via email: reservations@zrhcy.ch or via fax: +41 44 564 0341. Rooms not booked by 29th March 2014 will be released so make sure you

book in time. Should you arrive by car, please note there is no parking available close by except the underground hotel parking, which costs CHF30 per day. We advise to book via phone or email, especially if you need to book extra nights. The hotel is conveniently situated right next to the rehearsal venue; however if you do wish to stay somewhere else, there is a large selection of other hotels available in and around Zurich. The official tourism website offers a hotel search function and also more information about Zurich: www.zuerich.com Social events The Friday evening event features a tram ride through town, including on-board drinks and snacks. Costs are £15/€20 per person. Guests are welcome; places are limited. On Saturday we invite you to join us for a typical Swiss cheese fondue dinner at £28/€35 per person. If you do not tolerate dairy products or have special dietary requirements and still want to join the orchestra this evening, please let us know and we will arrange an alternative meal for you. Both events are subsidized and partly covered by sponsors. Arrival in Zurich Airplane: Most European countries have direct flights to the Zurich Airport (ZRH), the biggest airport in Switzerland. From there it is a short transfer via train (or bus) to Zurich. You have to take a train that stops at Zurich-Oerlikon and get off there. Trains depart from the airport to Zurich-Oerlikon every 10 -15 minutes until shortly after midnight and cost around CHF6 for a single ticket. The journey time is 5 minutes. Alternatively you can take a taxi from outside the terminal for about CHF30. The journey is around 10 minutes. If you choose to stay in the Courtyard Marriott Hotel you have a further option of using their door-to-door minibus, which you will also find outside the terminal, between arrival 1 and arrival 2 in the Hotel Bus Shuttle Zone No 4. Costs vary between CHF5 and CHF25, depending on the number of passengers. For further information, please check the hotel website: www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/zrhcy-courtyard-zurich-north Alternative airports are Basel-Mulhouse, Bern-Belp and Friedrichshafen, which are all about a 90 minutes drive away. However, if you are flying to one of these airports, please consider not just the extra travel time but also the extra costs; train fares can be fairly expensive so cheaper flight deals are often offset by high transfer costs. Train: Please note there are several train stations in Zurich, including Zurich HB (which means ‘Hauptbahnhof’, i.e., Main Station). Zurich HB has connecting trains to most major cities in Europe. You can easily get from Zurich HB to the nearest station from the Hotel and rehearsal venue, the Zurich-Oerlikon train

station, within 5 minutes via various suburban train lines (e.g., S16, S5, S6, S7 etc.), which depart every 5 to 10 minutes from Zurich HB. Walking: Exit Zurich-Oerlikon train station on the north side toward platform 8 and walk head north on Therese-Giehse-Strasse for 5 minutes. There are signs to the hotel. Unfortunately there is construction at the train station, which might make it a bit more difficult; we therefore recommend printing out the attached map. If you are planning on extending your stay in Switzerland before or after EDO you might find the following travel website helpful. It offers lots of useful information about ticket deals and also suggestions about places to visit: www.swisstravelsystem.com The schedule The first rehearsal is a Tutti rehearsal starting on Thursday, 29th May at 5 pm. Supper will be provided during the rehearsal break, as well as lunch on Friday and Saturday. All rehearsals will be held at the local school building ‘Im Birch’, which is situated behind the Courtyard Marriott Hotel. There will be rehearsals on Friday and Saturday running approximately from 9 am to 5.30 pm with a social program in the evenings. A detailed rehearsal schedule will be provided later. On Sunday morning there will be a transfer arranged from Zurich to Bern where the concert will take place at 5pm. Travel time to Bern, the capital of Switzerland, is a little over an hour. There will be farewell drinks and snacks after the concert in the concert hall building. Should you wish to stay in Bern overnight, please arrange for a hotel. The official tourism website is www.bern.com. Alternatively there will be a transfer back to the Courtyard Marriott Hotel in Zurich approximately one hour after the end of the concert. The concert The concert will be on 1st June at 5 pm at Kultur-Casino Bern (www.kulturcasino.ch). The program will be the overture to Ruslan and Ljudmila by Michail Glinka, the Triple Concerto for piano, violin and cello by Ludwig van Beethoven and Antonín Dvořák’s 6th symphony. Concert dress is, as always, all black for both women and men (shirt and trousers, no tie or jacket). Tickets for the concert cost CHF38, 25 respectively (tickets for children/students are CHF10) and are available from www.ticketino.com.

The charity All proceeds from ticket sales will go to Krebsliga Schweiz, which is the national cancer organisation/charity in Switzerland. The Swiss Cancer League was founded in 1910 and is a charitable organisation dedicated to cancer prevention, patient-oriented research funding and supporting cancer patients and their loved ones. It is mainly funded through donations. www.krebsliga.ch. Please bring along - Instrument, music, pencil, - Music stand - Concert dress

Map

  A = Zurich-Oerlikon train station B = Courtyard Marriott Hotel C = Rehearsal venue at Schulhaus Im Birch