Addenbrooke’s patient performs Covid-inspired choral music

Peter Johnstone took part in the first performance of 'Vision of a Garden' in October 2021 at the Royal Festival Hall

A former intensive care patient will join a choir on stage for a choral work based on the care he received.

Peter Johnstone spent weeks in a Covid-related coma at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge in March 2020.

Vision of a Garden, composed by Richard Blackford, was based on the diaries of nursing staff who treated him while he was unconscious.

The Bach Choir, which includes Mr Johnstone, will perform it at a concert on Friday at King's College Chapel.

Senior nurse Dan Harris said "singing alongside such wonderful musicians is a fantastic opportunity"

The concert is part of the Cambridge Summer Music Festival.

A special choir made up of twenty staff members from Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust will also perform at the event.

Among them is senior nurse Dan Harris who cared for Peter Johnstone while he was in Covid intensive care.

He recalls Mr Johnstone's "remarkable recovery" while he was in intensive care.

"We knew he loved singing and choral music so that was a way to relax him and lift his spirits," he said.

Vision of a Garden also draws inspiration from the Jubilee Garden at Addenbrooke's, where Professor Peter Johnstone was taken during his recovery.

The hospital choir will join The Bach Choir to perform Thomas Tallis's Hymn in G Minor.

The concert will also include a tribute to the Aberfan disaster of 1966 and Vaughan Williams' Tallis Fantasia.