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2010 - a summary...

 

March 2010

March 28th - The number of views of our videos on YouTube continues to rise for the eleventh month in succession.

March 28th - Today is the first day of British Summer Time, which means that officially the British Summer (such as it is!) is on its way. And that means that we move from the season when Churches are cold to the season when they are rather pleasant to sit in. And our first concert of the summer season is on April 17th in Emsworth. Emsworth is famous for its Solar Boat, which features in our recent video.

March 25th - We've placed another new photo at the bottom of our 2010 gallery.

March 22nd - Booking details for our May 22nd concert in Petersfield are now on our website.

March 21st - Last night's concert with Flautissimo was one of the most fun concerts we can remember. With five sizes of flute (piccolo, concert flute, alto, bass and contra), they provided a sweet and powerful sound that was a delightful contrast to our own, plucked sounds. The acoustic at the Turner Sims, Southampton, was nothing less than fantastic. Flautissimo's programme, which included some medieval dances at one end of the stylistic scale, and Holst's The Planets at the other, was a delight. You can read more about Flautissimo at their website.

March 20th - Concert tonight at the Turner Sims, Southampton, and our biggest playing contingent ever!

March 19th - We've added more photos to our 2010 gallery.

March 13th - many of us in hago thoroughly enjoyed the first episode of the BBC 2 programme "A Band for Britain" (available for 2 more weeks on iPlayer).
 
If you're a classical guitarist and wished that guitarists had same opportunity for exhilarating music, camaraderie and concerts that these brass players are having, well, we've got seats in hago that you might be able to fill. We're moving onwards and upwards again and this is a great time to get on board! Read more about joining hago here and then don't wait a minute longer - get in touch!

March 9th - we are terribly disappointed to announce that the promoter has cancelled our concert on March 13th. So sorry if you were planning to attend.
Next concert March 20th in Southampton

March 5th - our rehearsal last night was our largest ever, and was just after our eleventh birthday. Which can mean only one thing. Cake! We've added some photos to our 2010 gallery.

March 3rd - we are delighted that our most recent video - Handel's Water Music, set to a montage of photos from a trip on the Emsworth boat "The Solar Heritage" - is now part of the official publicity for the boat, as you'll see on this page...
Now the fine weather is on its way again, you might like to add a trip to your list of things to do this year - you'll love it!

February 2010

February 28th - some classical guitarists seem incredibly aloof, and yesterday's Guitar Section at Portsmouth Music Festival again threw up a handful of very insular characters. Not so Graham Cleaver & Gilly Slot who beamed smiles and shook hands with the hago players who'd come to support the day. And we're delighted, therefore, that they won the hago cup, for the best ensemble performance - deservedly so! The Adjudicator was Richard Durrant, and he also broke the mould - he was inspirational, and there can't have been a competitor who didn't go away determined to raise their game still higher. A special mention goes to the many kids who produced such confident and musical pieces - tomorrow's guitarists in action!

February 28th - in a triumph of spell-checker technology over poor spelling, we see that someone found our Fields of Gold YouTube video by searching for "Portsmouth Old Pikchers"

February 19th - we were delighted to welcome two more talented guitarists along to last night's rehearsal. We're hoping they'll join us permanently. We certainly had a lot of music and laughter (and food - what is it about playing guitar than means one just HAS to have something to eat in the middle of rehearsal?). It was a perfect occasion to take some snaps and start off 2010's photo album.

February 15th - our good friends at Cambridge Guitar Orchestra (we're sharing a concert with them in June) are holding a Guitar Weekend in October, so if you live round those parts or you fancy a weekend away, check out their website. Note that there is little accommodation left - book soon!
 
Closer to home, our Musical Director's informal ensemble, the Guitar Workshop at Farlington had the largest attendance for many years with 32 players and two guitarists coming for a free trial. If you play at novice or intermediate level and want to enjoy a working play-list of 150 ensembles, come along to Derek's Guitar Workshop fortnightly on Thursday evenings.

February 8th - If you haven't heard of the Emsworth Solar Boat - a battery-powered catamaran that is recharged by solar panels - then let us take you on a short video tour of Chichester Harbour, accompanied by hago playing the hornpipe from Handel's Water Music. The video is also now listed on our Audio and Video page.

February 4th - We've made a couple of changes to our website. One or two links will now take you across to our Musical Director's website where those pages now reside.

January 2010

24th January - Well, those of you in the UK will know what a white start it was to the New Year, and our first rehearsal became our first that was cancelled due to the weather. But we met last week, and already we have a new arrangement that looks like it's not only going to be rather special, but will be familiar to everyone too!

24th January - We hope you find our new menus make it a little easier to explore our site...

1st January - In the year just gone, we served over 600,000 pages to visitors like yourselves - welcome to our website!

Happy New Year, from all of us in hago - the Hampshire Guitar Orchestra!

A year ago we were talking about the world financial crisis, and saying that it didn't seem to be impacting on the amount of money we'd been able to raise for charity.

One year on, the UK is still in recession (despite our Prime Minister saying that we were best placed to be first out of the gloom). We certainly win a prize for leaving the recession, but unfortunately it's the booby prize.

But... our the amount we raised for charity went up by 25%. Isn't that remarkable? And isn't it wonderful!

With fewer concerts in 2010 (we really did stoke rather a lot into last year!) we know we can't continue this fantastic trend, but we definitely aim to play a series of concerts that appeal to all musical tastes. And we hope to see you at one of them :-)

Happy New Year everyone!