Monthly Archives: June 2018

The Program for our 8-Bell Concert at the Area 8 Festival

We’ll be presenting a short 8-bell duet concert on Friday, June 29th at 12:00pm, at Bring It! Ring It! – the 2018 Handbell Musicians of America Area 8 Festival in Omaha, Nebraska. We only have half an hour at lunchtime for this concert, so we’re including just a few of our favorite pieces. There will be a mixture of well-loved hymns, traditional melodies, and an Advent carol thrown in, even though it’s completely the wrong time of year for it. Here’s the program!

Area 8 festival - duet concert

If you can’t be at the concert…

We hope to see you at the concert! If you won’t be at the Area 8 Festival, you might enjoy our YouTube channel, where you’ll find lots of our handbell duets.

Alternatively, why not consider hosting a handbell concert? We can bring a concert of handbell duets to your church, and combine it with playing during a worship service. When you book us for a concert, we take up less room than a traditional handbell choir, and we bring everything we need with us. We have a wide repertoire of hymns and traditional tunes to entertain your audience. Take a look at our reviews, and contact us if you’d like to book us for your event!

New Music for Handbells – Klein Vogelijn

Klein Vogelijn – “Little Bird”. Since moving to Holland, Michigan, we’ve enjoyed seeing how the people here still celebrate their Dutch heritage today. We’ve tried on traditional Klompen (wooden shoes) and watched them being made. We’ve had several tours of the De Zwaan windmill, and we’ve tiptoed through the tulips at the city’s annual Tulip Time event.

Klein Vogelijn - handbells
Tulip Time in Holland, Michigan

We’ve eaten Dutch food, and even risked the Michigan December weather to play Christmas handbell duets at the wonderful Kerstmarkt in Downtown Holland. We’ve been living here for nearly two years now, and we thought it was time for a new adventure – Dutch music!

Our first Dutch piece is an arrangement of the traditional song Klein Vogelijn. We performed this piece for the first time at our concert on Mackinac Island, for the opening of the Handbell Musicians of America Area 5 spring festival. Our video is from a rehearsal at the beginning of the year.

We’re looking forward to expanding our repertoire of traditional Dutch music over the next few months!

Would you like to play this piece?

If you’d like to play Klein Vogelijn, the sheet music is available for purchase and download from Choraegus.

Please note that Choraegus handbell music is designed to be downloaded and printed at home. Don’t wait for anything to arrive in the mail! If you’re new to buying our music online, we recommend our step-by-step guide. We designed this guide to help make the process (we hope!) a stress-free experience!

When you buy 8-bell music, your purchase entitles you to print up to 4 copies of the sheet music for your handbell group. Don’t pay for more music than you need! Purchase also gives permission for you to perform this piece and make a video of your group playing it.

Any questions?

If you have any questions about our handbell music, please read our Frequently-Asked Questions first. However, if you don’t find the answers you need, you’re welcome to contact us, and we’ll be happy to help!