Category: Recent events and activities

The summer term of 2023 was spent preparing to record our very first CD. You can read all about our efforts here on our CD blog.

It was great to return to St Luke’s Church for an evening devoted entirely to plucked string music. MMO played the first half and our guests for the 2nd half were the Mezzacapo Ensemble, led by Stuart McGowan who has played with the MMO in the past, and featuring another old friend, Rob Garcia. It… Continue reading March 2023 Concert at St Luke’s with Mezzacapo Ensemble

Our Christmas concert this year had a strong South American flavour. The Frida Violeta Band (led by Margarita Salazar, who also plays guitar with the MMO) is a group of locally-based musicians from a number of countries who perform in a variety of South American idioms. As usual we found a joint item to play… Continue reading December 2022 – concert with the Frida Violeta Band

After an interval of exactly 3 years (now why would that have been?) it was a great pleasure to revive another old Moonlights tradition – playing as part of Histon Feast Week in collaboration with Kirsty Body and the Harmonia Singers (combined Coton and Cottenham branches). In keeping with tradition, the two groups played for… Continue reading July 2022 – Histon Feast concert with Harmonia Singers

Hard on the heels of the concert at the Buddhist Centre came the BMG Festival. 10 of the group travelled up to Edinburgh to take part in workshops and competitions and generally mingle with other mandolin orchestras from round the country. The previous Festival, in 2020, did not take place due to the arrival of… Continue reading April 2022 – BMG Festival in Edinburgh

Three years almost to the day since we last played at the same venue with Daniela, we were delighted to return with new music but a now familiar format. The MMO played the first half and for our last item, Daniela joined us as featured soloist to play Boccherini’s Introduction and Fandango. As an added… Continue reading March 2022 – joint concert with Daniela Rossi

It had been almost exactly 2 years since our last public concert! We were nervous, and the COVID clouds seemed to be gathering again as the date approached, but we got there and it was great. The orchestra enjoyed being back in the lovely auditorium at Stapleford, and there was an exceptionally good audience turnout… Continue reading December 2021 – Stapleford Granary

We had originally planned for our first post-lockdown concert to take place at Histon Baptist Church, and were all anxiously reading the ever-changing and very confusing guidance as to whether such an event would be possible. In the end the church decided to take a cautious line and did not give the go-ahead for the… Continue reading July 2021 – garden concert in Histon

In early 2021 we found ourselves still unable to rehearse normally and although the weekly sessions on Zoom were still enjoyable, we needed something fresh. We decided to attempt a group composition inspired by Minimalism. Each week for half a term, we devoted some of of our Zoom rehearsal time to activities related to this… Continue reading 2021 – MMO composition project “Cabin Fever”

In 2020 it was impossible to do a live concert of course, and for most of the year we could not get together to rehearse face to face. We soldiered on, running weekly sessions with the aid of Zoom. We all had to learn new things on the computer, and new ways of practising and… Continue reading 2020 – the year of lockdown videos

      We had a really spectacular day of mandolin music at St Andrew’s Street Baptist Church, Cambridge in Cambridge on 7th December 2019. We had the great pleasure and honour of introducing Mauro Squillante , Gaio Ariani and Valerio Fusillo from the Accademia Mandolinistica Napoletana (the trio is collectively known as “Mandol’in Progress”).      … Continue reading Dec 2019 with Mauro Squillante

Just a week after our Histon Feast concet, we were out again at St Michael’s Church, Bishop’s Stortford, this time playing a fundraising concert for restoration of the church bells. This concert was organised by our local link Rowena. Not everyone was available but despite being slightly under-strength, the MMO managed a fine evening of… Continue reading Bishop’s Stortford, July 2019

We did a very enjoyable lunchtime concert as part of the Stapleford Granary’s Coffee Concert series, on May 19th 2019. This was the MMO’s first visit to this prestigious new local venue, and we hope not the last! The orchestra rose well to the challenge of providing an hour’s worth of music (without interval and… Continue reading Stapleford Granary May 2019

On March 23rd we played at the historic Festival Theatre in Cambridge, sharing the programme with with our very favourite classical guitarist, Daniela Rossi. The theatre space is now part of the Cambridge Buddhist Centre, and many thanks to Dharmanatha, who is a member of both the Buddhist Group and the Moonlight Mandolins, for organising and… Continue reading Festival Theatre March 2019