hampshire guitar orchestra newsletter

This is a web-archive of the Newsletter we emailed to our subscribers in October 2007

The passage of time may mean that some links to external sites are out of date or broken

ABOUT THIS NEWSLETTER

This free newsletter is a small-scale production to keep you in touch with what's happening in hago - we always include links into our main website where you can read more, see photos and explore still further, so do click when you see a link...

Welcome to the many people who have subscribed since last issue - here's where you find out what we're up to.

In our last newsletter we wrote "We're back again suntanned (or rusty) as the evenings start to draw in..."
And here we are. And it's rust, rather than suntan!

CONCERT NEWS

Our Autumn season began rather early when we played an outdoor set on the Bognor Bandstand on September 2nd. That must have been the windiest day of the summer. Pegs kept the music in place on the music stands, but the wind was so strong the stands were blowing over! But it was great fun, and we've been offered another concert next year, just down the road, as a result of that enjoyable afternoon.

Everyone wants their 15 minutes of fame, but last Saturday we had TWO 15-minute spots in a massive concert at Portsmouth Guildhall. We've not played to an audience of over 1000 people before, but we definitely want to do it again - it was a great concert and we thank our hosts, the Milton Glee Club and the Central Band of the Royal British Legion for their friendship and great music.

We created quite a stir - our sound was an amazing contrast to the singing and greatly appreciated. Apparently people were spilling out of the building saying things like "Oooh, I never knew what a guitar orchestra was, and that it would sound like that". No really, they were!

WHAT'S COMING UP?

What's coming up is a busy time, and if there's a concert near you, we invite you to come along - our repertoire has had another addition or two, and we still have our crowd-pleasers, of course.

We're in the Church of the Good Shepherd in Four Marks, near Alton this Saturday evening.

And then we're playing in a Nunnery at Wickham on Thursday November 1st. More here.

We're delighted to return to the village Church in the anachronistic squiredom of Southwick on November 29th. More soon.

And we're playing in North End on December 8th.

Come and hear our specially adapted contras - we've got two contras that sound even more remarkable than ever! We're going to do one more improvement to them and then you can read about "Bill and Ben" as they will undoubtedly get called, on our website!

You can always get an up-to-date list on our concerts page.

RECRUITMENT NEWS

We've got a new recruit lined up to join us, but we're still looking for good guitarists who want what we think is the opportunity of a lifetime - endless concerts, a great team, great fun and unusual guitars. We even have a new Niibori bass guitar on order that should be arriving at Christmas.
Fancy trying it?

REPERTOIRE

We've a new piece, and a new arrangement of an old favourite. We never sit still in hago!

WEBSITE NEWS

We hope you enjoy our new and slightly fresher look to the website, with some of the important pages easier to find.

Guitarists amongst you will find some interesting new mini-articles on tone-production and ensemble playing that we think you'll enjoy. Click here.

And you'll find our video clip from the concert on the evening on the London bombing is on YouTube now as well. Either click on this link or just search for Guitar Orchestra and we're near the top. If you like it, don't forget to rank it - thanks!