BRUCE DICKINSON To Perform JON LORD's 'Concerto For Group And Orchestra' On Brazilian Tour In April 2023

IRON MAIDEN singer Bruce Dickinson will take part in a performance of Jon Lord's "Concerto For Group And Orchestra" on a four-date tour of Brazil in April 2023. The concerts will be performed by a symphony orchestra consisting of more than 80 instrumentalists conducted by Paul Mann, a close friend of Jon's, and assembled especially for the occasion with members of OSESP (Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo) and some of the country's main symphony groups. They will appear alongside Kaitner Z Doka (JON LORD, IAN PAICE, DON AIREY) on guitar, Bernhard Welz (JON LORD, DON AIREY) on drums, John O'Hara (JETHRO TULL) on keyboards, Tanya O'Callaghan (WHITESNAKE) on bass and Mario Argandonia (SCORPIONS) on percussion.

The dates are as follows:

April 15 - São Paulo, Brazil - Vibra São Paulo
April 19 - Curitiba, Brazil - Teatro Positivo
April 21 - Rio De Janeiro, Brazil - Vivo Rio
April 25 - Porto Alegre, Brazil - Auditório Araújo Vianna

Bruce previously performed "Concerto For Group And Orchestra" last November in Győr, Hungary with DEEP PURPLE bassist Roger Glover and the Győr Symphony Orchestra. Prior to that, he performed at the 50th-anniversary celebration of "Concerto For Group And Orchestra" in November 2019 at the Palais Montcalm in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada.

When the Quebec City concert was first announced, Dickinson said: "As many people know, DEEP PURPLE have been a major, ongoing influence in my life since I was a teenager, and down the years, I have been fortunate enough to become good friends with all of the band, most especially in my collaborations with Jon Lord."

Added Mann: "My long collaboration with Jon Lord, and in particular his innovative, genre-defying 'Concerto', has been one of the greatest joys of my musical life. Jon's spirit will definitely be with us."

During a September 2018 spoken-word gig in Copenhagen, Denmark, Dickinson talked about his friendship with Lord. He said: "Jon Lord was a wonderful gentleman, and we were close friends. And he sadly died of… He had pancreatic cancer, but he survived for a year and a half — much against what everybody had said would happen. And actually, at the end, he didn't die of pancreatic cancer — he died, unfortunately, of some terrible blood collapse that happened with him, possibly as a result of treatment. But we had all kinds of crazy plans, including me going out on tour with him, singing DEEP PURPLE songs with an orchestra, which he was planning to do; that was one of the things we were planning to do. But it all got interrupted and canceled, and [it was] obviously very sad. He was a wonderful man."

Lord died on July 16, 2012 at age 71 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. Lord, who was known for his keyboard virtuosity and his reinvention of the Hammond B-3 organ sound, co-wrote such PURPLE classics as "Smoke On The Water" and "Child In Time", among others. Lord and drummer Ian Paice were the only original members to last through the band's initial run from 1968 to 1976. He was on board for their 1984 reunion and stayed on through to his 2002 retirement from the band, after which he worked primarily in the classical field.