hago News Archives - 2013

December 25th

Happy Christmas from all of hago to all of you - may 2014 be a wonderful year for you all; we hope to see some of you at a concert or two in 2014!

December 20th

So what happens when the audience only knows 3 words of a Christmas piece? This does - recorded at our Carol Concert last night at a Sheltered Housing Complex in central Portsmouth.
We couldn't get the microphone positioned well so it's mainly top and bottom and no middle!

November 26th

The organiser of our November 23rd concert writes...

Just a note to thank you and the rest of the HAGO for giving us such a wonderful concert on Saturday. Peter and I thoroughly enjoyed the performance and thought the programme of music a really nice mix ... We have had some good positive feedback.

You will be interested and pleased to know that we cleared £470 for Friends of Boundaries Surgery and we were very happy with that. A tremendous result in the end so thank you for all your help in achieving this.

We really appreciate you playing for us and giving up your Saturday evening - specially on a Dr Who night!

Thank you once again and very best wishes with your forthcoming concerts and future fundraising.

November 12th

Great news - our concert on November 9th raised £585 for The Listening Place - a busy counselling service in Salisbury. To those who came along, thank you so much for helping raise this fantastic amount.

November 9th

We heard today that our concert for Off The Record raised £959 after expenses - what a MAGNIFICENT total - thank you for coming along and supporting it. Visit their website if you were unable to come to our concert but want to support them - you can donate online.

October 23rd

Feedback from our concert on Saturday from the Organiser...

Hello Derek and the wonderful guitar players of HAGO, What an amazing concert you gave in aid of Off The Record on Saturday. It was a full house. I will let you know very soon the total amount raised. Good luck with your future concerts - you do a cracking job entertaining and with on-going fundraising for worthwhile charities across the south. Keep up the good work.
Best wishes to all, Tina

October 20th

It was lovely to see so many people at our concert in aid of Off The Record last night - we will keep you updated with the fund-raising total.

August 15th - from Good Vibrations, the West Sussex Guitar Club newsletter, received today and writing about our June concert there...

...We heard a whole spectrum of types of music, ranging from Dvorak to Status Quo, from 42nd Street to an exciting Cuban Dance and from the Beatles to Elizabethan music...

...it was a most appropriate way to end the season with such a light evening of music and humour which was greatly enjoyed by both the audience and performers alike. We all eagerly await their return.

See also the comments we posted here on June 16th

August 11th - we've just updated our concerts page with booking information for our October 19th concert in aid of Off The Record, which provides confidential support for young people.

Portsmouth Music Hub has encouraged the promoter to offer "Kids for a quid" tickets for under-14s, so we're looking forward to meeting lots of new faces at our family friendly evening.

July 5th - last night we said Au Revoir to two of our team - Anna and Gill.

We presented them with personalised photo albums of their time in hago - see more in our 2013 gallery, right down the bottom, where there's a photo of the new team that's going to carry us forward.

The fantastic news, though, is that Anna and Gill are now hago alumni and are returning to play in our October 19th concert - how lovely is that?

June 30th - we had the most fantastic concert yesterday up Cambridge, thanks to our hosts Cambridge Guitar Orchestra.

There's too much to tell in the space we have here, but you can be sure that there really is a connection between...
Hotel California, mustard, two fictitious French composers, a member of hago that we had to shoot, Bayko, a hen party in a lift, a broken tooth, cranberry juice, some badly positioned cheese and the lock on a toilet door that didn't live up to its name.

We've put some photos up (don't be alarmed, the toilet doesn't feature in the photos!) - see them here.

June 26th - We've uploaded another video to our YouTube channel...

Amanda McBroom's The Rose - a video inspired by the serendipity of our playing of The Rose at West Sussex Guitar Club on June 15th, and their Artistic Director's lovely presentation of a red rose to each of our female pluckers.

You'll find it (and those mentioned below) on our "Audio & Video page" - all the most recent uploads are at the top of the video page.

June 20th - We've uploaded three more videos to our YouTube channel...

Frederic Bayco's Elizabethan Masque

Ruiz-Pipo's Danza

Palladio by Karl Jenkins

You'll find these and more on our "Audio & Video page" - all the most recent uploads are at the top of the video page.

June 16th - we really enjoyed playing a concert for West Sussex Guitar Club last night - a packed house and raising £167 for their club funds. It brings our fund-raising total to £58,785

There's a larger photo in our gallery

Audience feedback included

"Brilliant concert Derek and HAGO - enjoyed every minute. By the way, that beautiful old guitar belonging to Brian Whitehouse that we spoke about in the interval is a Santos Hernandez"

"Hi Derek, Thank you for the great evening. It was certainly a memorable evening."

"Many thanks for a most enjoyable concert this evening."

"What a fantastic evening with the Hampshire Guitar Orchestra (HAGO). Looking forward to listening to them again soon."

"Just wanted to drop you a line to say thanks to you and the orchestra for a really enjoyable concert. As I mentioned to you during the interval the acoustics were so much clearer than at Farnham - the acoustics and intimacy were such you could hear all the individual instruments, the twiddly bits, the harmonies and the crescendo's really did crescend!!"

"Many thanks for a most enjoyable concert - wonderful light music superbly played (& arranged) & a lot of fun for both audience & orchestra."

"Had a really fun evening at the Regis School of Music - Thanks HAGO"

May 18th - We played a concert today for the residents at the Royal Star and Garter Homes Richmond - our fifth and final concert there (the Home is closing and moving to a new purpose-built facility nearby).

It's been the most amazing privilege to play to some amazing people. All disabled, all such lovely people.

We bet there aren't many guitarists who've played to someone who is 106 years old. We have!

Visit our gallery page - scroll down for some photos behind the scenes!

May 1st - We've learned today that our Farnham concert raised £490 for the Performers Together appeal (read more by visiting their website) - if you came along, thank you helping raise our fund-raising total to £58616

It was lovely to play to an audience of a hundred at St Andrews Farnham a couple of days ago.

Concert comments included...

"I don't know if you noticed saw me, but I was the on the second row, with a contented smile on my face, absolutely enraptured! All your guitarists were spot on, led by a terrific maestro. "

"What a wonderful concert tonight in Farnham. You are an amazing group of guitarists. We thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank you, very much."

31st March - Happy Easter to everyone!

17th March - Our Bedhampton concert last October has featured in the local PO9 newspaper, which is delivered to households in the Havant and Bedhampton area.

12th March - "Performers Together", who are the promoters of our concert in Farnham on April 20th, have released a poster for our forthcoming concert. Why not pre-book and save £2 a ticket.

See more about the concert in our concerts page

4th March - we're featured on pages 2 and 19 of today's Portsmouth News

See more in our 2013 gallery

25th February - hago is 14 years old today!

22nd February - things are starting to happen!

There are plenty of new photos in our gallery. The 2013 photos have one common characteristic - they're all about food and not music! Our 14th birthday is on Monday, and so we celebrated at the closest rehearsal - yesterday.

January 9th - Our fund-raising total has risen to £58,127

Our Danzon Video has become our most popular video in the last 3 months - why not take a look if you've not seen it yet.

January 1st - Happy New Year from everyone here in hago - may your 2013 be every bit as rewarding as you hope it will be. We hope to see many of you at our forthcoming concerts (details coming up soon).