Hampshire Guitar Orchestra in pictures - Open Rehearsals
Early in hago's history, we held Open Rehearsals - a chance for local guitarists and teachers to join us, partly for an evening of fun, partly to enjoy food and wine together, and partly (let's be honest!) to see if they wanted to join us.
Open Rehearsal June 2004
June 2004 saw hago's first Open Rehearsal - an evening of simple ensemble music - free of charge.
With our guests ranging from self-taught right up to Diploma-Level, we sightread for England! (who said guitarists can't sightread?)
Attendance wasn't as high as we hoped but we did recruit Kathryn, one of our finest players!
Some of the visitors and some of hago, pictured here in our old rehearsal venue at St John's Purbrook
Pausing for a liquid refreshment break!
Everyone received a pack of easy ensemble music that allowed our visitors to try out our four different sizes of guitar straight away!
The pack included
Kookaburra, Jammin' in the Traffic Jam, Wee Cooper of Fife and
English Country Garden
We followed that with a special arrangement of La Cumparsita .
Feedback
We asked everyone who attended what they thought of the evening. Here's the most important question ...
| Question 5 : Would you come to a similar evening next year? | ||||
| Definitely yes | Probably yes | Possibly | Probably not | Definitely not |
| 60% | 20% | 20% | 0% | 0% |
Open Rehearsal 2006
We sent 90 flyers about our second Open Rehearsal, in 2006, to all the local guitar teachers.
We think our local teachers must be rather shy - only one replied!
One local guitar teaching who is anything but shy, of course, is our Musical Director, who is busy teaching private guitar lessons in the daytime.
Here we are in a refurbished St John's Church Hall and a shot showing some of the people who made it along
We began the evening with some simple ensemble pieces...
- I'm Not Strong Sir (a three part round)
- J'ai Du Bon Tabac from Tiny Trios Book 1
- Tutu Tango from Diff'rent Dances Book 1
Each arrangement was for 3 (ordinary) guitars and followed up with a separate version with parts for alto, bass and contra.
There was much swapping of guitars in the frenzy of music that followed!
Of course, no hago event is complete without food and wine.
For long and convoluted reasons, our Musical Director began before everyone else. You see, he had made a couple of side-bets at our 2006 Chichester concert and having lost them
both, he was forced to eat his hat, or rather our secretary's hat...
At the far end of the hall was a generous supply of food and drink that didn't need a mad hatter (or a mad hat-eater)....
Digital dexterity is key to everything in hago...
Caroline and Kate show how to hold a wine glass with either hand!
And did it work?
Feedback included
- "I was impressed by the sense of commitment and fun that was so obvious throughout the evening"
- "good luck with the future ventures of HAGO"