News Summary
This is a summary of older news items for this web site, with links to more details further down the page or elsewhere on the site. Note that some old links on this page may no longer work, or may no longer be active.
| 4th September 2020 |
We recently heard the very sad news that Terry Barfoot passed away from cancer on 12th August.
Terry had been a close friend of Peter Craddock and a strong supporter of
the Havant Orchestras almost since their very beginning,
giving pre-concert talks and writing programme notes for concerts by both orchestras.
After Peter’s retirement, Terry generously continued to supply us with programme notes
from his extensive collection and write new ones when necessary.
We were delighted that he was able to come along and speak at the Peter Craddock Celebration Concert in March 2019.
He will be sadly missed.
A profile of Terry appeared on Music in Portsmouth in April this year: https://musicinportsmouth.co.uk/noticeboard/profile-terry-barfoot-lecturer-and-writer/ |
| 23rd May 2020 | At the end of the Family Concert, back in March, concert, young listeners were invited to take away a competition sheet and return it to us with their answers with a chance to win a Paddington bear. The winners were contacted some time ago, but we can reveal now that there were three winners – Sophia, Maddie and Madeleine! See our blog entry Paddington winners! for more details, including the competition answers and pictures from the concert. |
| 6th April 2020 |
We were devastated to hear of the death from Covid-19
of the leader of Havant Chamber Orchestra, Brian Howells.
Brian was in hospital in Poole on life support for 12 days but tragically lost the battle against the virus on Sunday 5th April 2020. His wife, former principal cello of HCO, Amanda de Jong Cleyndert, was with him at the end and he requested to hear ‘Metamorphosen’ by Strauss in his last hours. Appointed Leader of HCO in 1997, Brian had a distinguished career as Principal Second Violin with the Bournemouth Sinfonietta and before that the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and New BBC Orchestra in Bristol. He played with many local professional ensembles including Southern Pro Musica and was also in great demand as a leader of amateur orchestras. Brian’s technical skill and musicianship, his passion for music and his sense of humour in rehearsal will be greatly missed by all who have played with HCO over the years. |
| 30th March 2020 |
We have now concluded that we also need to cancel the
HCO concert
at Wickham Community Centre on Saturday 16th May, and of course the preceding rehearsals.
This is because the government has recently warned that coronavirus restrictions on leaving home are expected to continue for at least two or three months and social distancing even longer. Also, the Wickham Community Centre is now closed until further notice. Tickets will be refunded as necessary. The Tickets Secretary will contact season ticket holders and attempt to contact anyone who purchased individual tickets directly. |
| 17th March 2020 |
Concert cancelled!
Following new government health advice (as of 16th March)
to “avoid non-essential social contact”
to reduce the risk of coronavirus (COVID-19) transmission,
we have reluctantly decided to cancel the
HSO concert
at Oaklands School on Saturday 21st March, and the rehearsal the previous evening.
Tickets will be refunded as necessary. Those who purchased tickets online via TicketSource will be notified via email and the tickets will be refunded automatically. The Tickets Secretary will contact season ticket holders and attempt to contact anyone who purchased individual tickets directly. Players will need to return their music promptly as some of it is hired. Arrangements for how to do this are being notified by email. Unfortunately it is very likely that this extremely sad situation will also impact further concerts and rehearsals. We will update this website whenever we have any new information, and post a link to it on our Facebook feed. |
| 14th March 2020 | The Havant Orchestras Newsletter for March 2020 is now available, including additional information about the HSO concert at Oaklands School, Waterlooville, on Saturday 21st March. |
| 16th February 2020 | Our popular family concert on 8th March has proved to be very popular indeed! We are sorry that tickets are already totally sold out so some families have been disappointed. We looked into repeating the same concert shortly afterwards but we found that too many key players were unavailable, which is not surprising as our concert dates are normally planned many months in advance. We hope to have more family concerts in future seasons, and we will try to allow for multiple performances to enable more families to attend. |
| 15th February 2020 |
Last Saturday (8th February) we had our first full HCO concert of this season,
which was in Holy Trinity Church, Fareham,
because Ferneham Hall is now closed for refurbishment.
We enjoyed the excellent acoustics and Mikhail
Lezdkan’s excellent cello playing.
Here’s a very complimentary review of the concert which Lara Jelliff posted to
Music In Portsmouth: The orchestra had to squeeze rather tightly into the available space so the front row of the audience ended up very close to the players, which was somewhat uncomfortable both for them and for the players. (The first row of pews had been removed to increase the space, but the second row is fixed to pillars). For any future concert in that church, we have therefore decided that the central front pews will need to be left empty, even though this will further limit the audience capacity. |
| 1st February 2020 | The Havant Orchestras Newsletter for February 2020 is now available, including additional information about the HCO concert at Holy Trinity Church, Fareham, on Saturday 8th February. |
