Music written in PoW camp in WW2 finally performed

A piece of orchestral music written inside a prisoner of war camp during World War Two has been performed for the first time.

Alan Bolt, who lived near Barrow for decades before his death in 2019 at age 100, wrote the concerto at a German PoW camp near the end of the war in celebration of the anticipated Allied victory.

His widow Alison Bolt said the piece - Overture for a Festival - was never performed because the camp was liberated soon after by Russian soldiers.

The composition was finally performed by the Liverpool Philharmonic in Barrow Town Hall on Friday and his widow said he would have been "absolutely over the moon".

Alan set up an orchestra at the camp in East Germany.

Alison Bolt said: "[It was] made up of players from all kinds of allied countries including Poland, Holland, USA, Canada, South Africa."

Some of the players already had instruments in the camp whereas other instruments were obtained via trades among locals in the surrounding countryside, she also said.

The orchestra primarily played well known classical pieces but near the end of 1944 Alan wrote a new piece in anticipation of the expected Allied victory, Alison said.

"They started rehearsing it… but in fact it never got performed because the Russians came in and liberated the camp," she said.

Alan kept the sheet music it remained in the couple's attic in Cumbria until his death.

"I decided that I really ought to do something about his music," Alison said.

She said she was at one of the Liverpool Philharmonic's pop-up concerts in Barrow when she had a "lightbulb moment" and sought their help.

"[Alan] would have been just absolutely over the moon for it be performed here in Barrow," she said.

Follow BBC Cumbria on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram and listen to Radio Cumbria on BBC Sounds.