The 2023 Bay View Week of Handbells starts on Monday, August 14th! Larry recently wrote an article about the event, and an abridged version was published in the Bay View Association’s newsletter, the Town Crier.
There was a lot of information in Larry’s article, but not enough space to publish the entire thing in the Town Crier. Click on the photo of the Town Crier below to read the article in full, and enjoy finding out more about the concert on Thursday, August 17th, this year’s music repertoire, and some interesting inside information about the composers and arrangers!
See you at the concert!
Remember to mark your calendar so that you don’t miss this year’s Week of Handbells concert! As mentioned in Larry’s Town Crier article, it will take place in the John M. Hall Auditorium on Thursday, August 17th. The concert starts at 7:30pm. It’s a popular event, so be sure to arrive early to get a seat in your favorite spot!
The two of us have been participating in the Week of Handbells since 2010. As always, we’ll be posting photos from this year’s event on our Facebook page, and you’re welcome to contact us if you have any questions about the concert, or the event in general.
After a busy Saturday morning of handbell workshops, we presented a handbell duet concert in Madison, WI. The sanctuary at Westminster Presbyterian Church is a beautiful performance space!
We played a whole concert with music using just eight bells at a time, although not the same bells for every piece. You’ll notice in the photo that we used three tables for the concert, even though we were only playing 8-bell music. We decided to do that because then we’d have a place to put our sheet music after we’d played it, and also because we used handchimes for one of the pieces. We don’t actually need a lot of space generally, but when we do have room to spread out, we do appreciate it!
Our concert program
Our concert was designed as a sacred concert. We added a couple of not-quite-sacred arrangements, but most of our repertoire consisted of hymns. Chopsticks was a fun addition; added fairly last-minute because we remembered how the audience had enjoyed it at our recent duet performance in Decatur, MI.
Here’s the program for the concert, listing the pieces we played:
It looks like a lot of pieces for one concert, but we don’t take as much time to reset our bells between pieces as a “standard size” handbell choir usually would, so we can fit more music into the program. We were grateful to Joe Chrisman from Westminster Presbyterian, who played piano for two of our pieces. We’d been rehearsing with an mp3 backing track played on a phone, so it was a real treat to have an actual pianist with us!
Here’s a video of Amazing Grace, with thanks to Larry’s brother Aj, who was at the concert:
Our 8-bell music
All of our 8-bell music is available for purchase and download from Choraegus. The helpful thing about Choraegus handbell music is that (with very few exceptions) it comes with fuss-free permission for performance, broadcasting and live-streaming. No one need worry about applying for separate licenses to perform or broadcast the pieces. We want to make it easy for other handbell ensembles to be able to perform our music too!
We’re thankful to everyone who came to our handbell concert in Madison. It was our first time performing there, and we appreciated the warm welcome we received. After the concert, on the Sunday morning, we played in two church services in Madison. We played prelude and offertory music at Covenant Presbyterian Church, then drove back to Westminster Presbyterian in time for offertory and postlude there. We’d had some doubts about being able to play in both services, but it turned out to be no problem at all, since the organizers Joe and Melissa had worked out the timing of everything so perfectly. The two churches were only a 6-minute drive apart, and we weren’t even out of breath when we arrived at Westminster. Playing in worship on the Sunday morning was a nice way to end our visit to Madison, before starting our long drive back to Michigan.
During our stay in Madison, we were able to visit the Wisconsin State Capitol building, which was opened in 1917. It’s a fascinating place to visit. When the trip was over, we drove back to Petoskey through Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, stopping at various places along the way. If you’d like to see more photos from our trip, take a look at our Facebook page!
Thanks again to everyone who made this Handbell Weekend possible. We hope to visit Madison again someday!
It’s been a while since we played handbell duets for an audience; in fact, we haven’t done that since February! Our handbell duet performance in Decatur gave us a chance to visit a new place, and to meet the friendly women of First Presbyterian Church. What a warm welcome they gave us!
The event was a Mother’s Day tea, and we played a variety of hymns and traditional melodies for an enthusiastic and appreciative audience in this small sanctuary. It was an ideal performance space for a small handbell ensemble, and the sound carried surprisingly well, even without amplification.
The 8-bell arrangements we played included Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee, Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing, Greensleeves/What Child Is This, Amazing Grace, Lucerna Laudoniae, To God Be the Glory, Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise, The Gift of Love(The Water is Wide), and Sakura. We also played our fun arrangement of Chopsticks, and demonstrated our handchimes by using them to play Ma Navu.
All the above arrangements are available to purchase from our music site, Choraegus.
During our handbell performance, we gave the audience the opportunity to ask questions. They came up with some interesting ones! We talked about how we met, how often we rehearse, and about Larry’s experience with ringing bass handbells. We also talked about the Kalamazoo Ringers concert coming up on May 21st in Kalamazoo, and encouraged people to go along and see bass chimes taller than Larry!
After the performance, we all went downstairs and enjoyed a reception with coffee and cookies. We received a kind gift of a little glass rooster and some lovely flowers to take home with us.
Our thanks go to the women of First Presbyterian Church for inviting us to give this handbell performance in Decatur. We hope to be back to see you all again someday!
Christmas Day has been and gone, but we’re determined to celebrate the full twelve days of Christmas. We’re at the blissful stage of the year when we can finally take a break, catch our breath, and relax after a busy month of holiday handbell performances!
The holiday season is always our favorite time of year. We get the chance to go out and share our Christmas handbell music, meet new people, and visit new places. We were fortunate that the recent snowy-blizzard weather waited until the second half of December to hit West Michigan, so we didn’t have to make any long drives in bad conditions. It’s always a risk when we arrange our holiday performance schedule, because we all know how unpredictable Michigan winter weather can be! Having said that, we’ve lived in Michigan since 2016, so we’re more used to driving through the snow now. Remember when we drove six hours a day for Larry’s radiation treatment in the winter of 2021? If we can survive that, we can survive anything!
Our 2022 holiday performances
Our 2022 holiday performance season began early this year, on November 19th, with our first of three performances at the Kerstmarkt. This Christmas market in Downtown Holland is always a highlight of our holiday season, but this year was a bit different! The opening day of the Kerstmarkt arrived on a day when snow was falling, and the temperature was… well, chilly, to say the least. Still, we’ve never cancelled a performance yet, so we were determined that this one would go ahead. We still managed to have fun, and we admired the courage of anyone who came out to shop in such terrible weather!
Handbells in the snow
For anyone worrying about our handbells and how they cope with extreme cold, we did take some precautions. We took the bells out into the garage a couple of hours before the performance, so that they’d get used to the drop in temperature gradually. We also didn’t play them too loudly when we got to the event. When we play in the cold, we always notice the change in the way the bells sound, so we don’t put any undue strain on them. There are some bells that really, really don’t like the cold, and they simply refuse to play, so we generally leave everything higher than G6 in the case, and don’t play any pieces that involve any “unhappy” bells.
Fortunately, we had two more opportunities to play at the Kerstmarkt. The weather was never as fierce as that first session, and we even had a bit of sunshine and blue sky!
We were privileged to be invited to perform two duet concerts during Advent. The first was at First United Methodist Church in Kalamazoo, as part of their lunchtime Advent Concert Series. It was wonderful to be able to share our music in such a beautiful space.
Our second concert was at Second Reformed Church in Zeeland. We performed as part of their Second Series: Sublime Art in a Sacred Space concert series. We didn’t have piano accompaniment this time; just an hour of seasonal handbell duets. It was fun to meet and chat with audience members at the post-concert reception.
“Return visit” handbell performances
We’re always pleased to be invited back to give handbell duet performances for groups we’ve played for in past years. This year was our fourth Christmas performance at the Gary Byker Memorial Library in Hudsonville. It’s always a popular event, run by the Friends of the Library. We also spent another evening in concert with the Zeeland Community Band. We’ve been at the ZCB Christmas concert since 2016, and it’s become an annual tradition for us. The band has been growing in number over the last few years, and they sound better than ever! We made return visits to several senior communities and local organizations this year too.
Corporate parties are some of our favorite holiday events, and we had fun playing at DeVos Place in Grand Rapids. We played Christmas music to welcome guests as they arrived at the party.
Concerts with the Kalamazoo Ringers
This December, we also enjoyed playing in a couple of concerts as part of the Kalamazoo Ringers. We took part in the annual Christmas in Kalamazoo event and the group’s Christmas concert at Grace Harbor Church. We even played one of Larry’s arrangements – Gaudete– and the full concert is now available to watch on YouTube.
Thank you to everyone who helped make this holiday season fun!
If you booked us for a performance or Christmas program or wrote a review of our performance – thank you. If you came to one of our concerts, we appreciate you too! To all those who offered us coffee or a meal, chatted with us, or prayed for us – thank you. We enjoyed sharing our handbell music with you, and we hope 2023 will be a happy and healthy year for you all!
The Monday Musical Club is a non-profit organisation dedicated to music education and promotion of creative and performing arts. Based in St. Joseph, Michigan, they hold a wide variety of education events and music performances. We were excited to be asked to present a shared concert with our friends Gary and Martha Matthews!
About Gary and Martha Matthews
Gary and Martha also live in Holland, and they’re a talented couple! Gary studied organ, music education, and sacred music, and holds a doctorate in Worship Studies. He served as Pastor of Worship and the Arts at Highland Park Baptist Church in Southfield, MI, and at Christ Memorial Church in Holland, MI. He’s a published composer, and has been performing for more than forty years, with piano, organ, trumpet and voice.
Martha holds a Bachelors in Music Education and a Masters in Flute Performance. She has played principal flute with Florida Symphonic Pops, Florida Wind Symphony, Gold Coast Opera, Gold Coast Ballet and the Washington Idaho Symphony. Martha directs the Kalamazoo Ringers, and is a sought-after handbell clinician. In concert with Gary, she plays flute, whistles, bell tree, and piano.
A concert with handbells, flute, piano, trumpet, and more!
We held our shared concert at First Congregational Church of St. Joseph. This is a beautiful sanctuary for a music performance! It was a treat for the four of us to be able to perform together. We’d spent most of our summer at our cottage near Petoskey, and Gary and Martha had been in Holland. Planning a concert and rehearsing is a challenge when you’re in different towns! Thanks to the power of email, and our individual rehearsals, we made it work.
Our program included music on a variety of instruments, including handbells (of course!) Gary and Martha opened the concert with a piece for piano and trumpet, and we continued with a couple of our favorite handbell duets. We also enjoyed the opportunity to get together as a quartet to perform some pieces – including Larry’s infamous arrangement of Hark! The Herald Angels Sing that the four of us had previously played for one of the Kalamazoo Ringers’ online Christmas concerts. We all played Blessed Assurance together, with a brand-new flute part that Larry had written specially for this concert. It was fun to find that some of the audience hadn’t seen handbells played in our 4-in-hand style before. We talked to audience members afterwards, and answered questions about our technique and the way we move.
Here’s the full program!
We enjoyed listening to Gary and Martha’s pieces, particularly Brent Olstad’s I Love to Tell the Story. Martha’s flute-played was enthralling to hear, and the audience clearly loved this piece. We finished the concert with an extra surprise – Larry’s lively arrangement of Ding Dong, Merrily on High. This is another arrangement for handbells, piano and flute, and it makes a perfect ending for a concert.
Our thanks go to the Monday Musical Club for inviting us to share our music in concert, and to everyone who came to listen. We hope to have the opportunity to perform in concert with Gary and Martha again someday!
If you’d like to provide an opportunity for us to perform in concert with Gary and Martha again, or you’d like to host a handbell duet performance, please get in touch with us, and we’ll talk more!
It’s only September, and technically not even fall/autumn yet, but we’re already scheduling bookings and events for the 2022 holiday season. Christmas is always our busiest time of year. If you’d like to book a handbell performance for the Christmas season, now is the time!
Why book a handbell performance for Christmas?
Everybody knows that bells and Christmas go together perfectly! Think of all the Christmas songs about bells; I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day, Jingle Bells, Silver Bells, Christmas Bells are Ringing, Ding Dong, Merrily on High… and the list goes on. Handbell music can give a special festive atmosphere to any Christmas or holiday event. As a handbell duo, we can give a seasonal performance of carols and holiday music, or provide background music to add a special, welcoming touch to your holiday event.
If you’re organizing a corporate event, a community group holiday celebration, winter wedding, or Christmas gathering, you should consider adding handbell music! Our duet performances can bring the sounds of the season to hotel lobbies, department stores, shopping boutiques, community groups and private house parties alike. Handbells can be an unusual alternative to carol singers too!
As the 2022 holiday season approaches, we’re already looking forward to local Christmas performances in Holland, Zeeland and Grand Rapids. Look out for us again at the annual Kerstmarkt in Downtown Holland! We’ll be taking our Christmas handbell program to community groups, and performing with the Zeeland Community Band. Of course, we’ll also be involved in performances by the Kalamazoo Ringers. We’re excited that the group will be performing one of Larry’s recent handbell arrangements for full choir in their concert!
The advantages of a (very) small handbell choir
We often refer to ourselves as West Michigan’s Smallest Handbell Choir. There are only two of us, so when we give a performance, we won’t arrive at your venue with a trailer packed with tables, foam pads, and dozens of cases of handbells! We also won’t need a huge space for our performance. We take up far less room than a traditional handbell choir would – approximately the space of half a car-parking spot. It makes us ideal for venues where space is limited, such as small church sanctuaries, senior communities, community halls, hotel lobbies, and private homes. We bring our own table, music stand, bells and music with us. We’ll work with you to provide the kind of entertainment you need, whether it’s background music, an educational program, or a concert-style performance.
A note about COVID-19
Sadly, COVID-19 is still around, and we make every effort to keep our audiences safe and healthy. We’re fully vaccinated, and will take note of any COVID-19 protocols you’re observing for your event. We do our best to maintain social distancing wherever possible, especially around elderly or vulnerable people. Still, every “in-person” event carries some risk. If you’d like us to prepare an online performance video for you to play at your event instead, please ask.
Would you like to book a handbell performance for Christmas?
A handbell performance could be exactly what your event needs for the 2022 Christmas and holiday season. Contact us to request our current performance fees, ask questions, or find out more. In order for us to give you the most accurate quote, please give us as much detail as possible. Let us know what kind of event you’re planning. Is it a worship service, a corporate party, a community event, or entertainment for a senior community? Let us know the date of the event, the location, and the type of performance you’re looking for.
We’re based in Holland, Michigan, but can travel (please enquire as early as possible, and allow for additional costs). We always recommend booking early (don’t wait until December!), but we can sometimes accommodate last-minute requests too. If in doubt, please ask.
We look forward to sharing our handbell music with you!
It’s hard to believe that the 2022 Bay View Week of Handbells was the 11th year we’ve attended this evening together! Of course, that would have happened sooner, if the pandemic hadn’t happened. The 2020 and 2021 Week of Handbells events were cancelled because of Covid-19, so it was a particularly good feeling to get back to it this year.
Our history with the Bay View Week of Handbells
We attended this annual event for the first time in August 2010, when we were still in our long-distance relationship. Carla flew to Chicago from England, and Larry flew in from California. We met in person for the very first time at Chicago O’Hare, and took the short flight to Traverse City together. Until then, we’d only ever communicated online, via Facebook messages, so it was exciting for us to be able to see each other in “real life” and spend time together.
After the 2010 Week of Handbells, we flew back to England and California, and spent a very long year apart. Finally, we were able to meet again at the 2011 Week of Handbells, where we celebrated our engagement with cupcakes at the Monday evening reception. Then we were separated again, returned to England and California, and went through all the challenges of the K-1 fiancée visa process. When the U.S. visa was approved, we were able to make plans to close the distance permanently. Planning the trip was complicated, but we made it all coincide with the 2012 Week of Handbells, and after the event was over, we flew to California to make our wedding plans. Apart from the two years when the event was cancelled, we’ve attended together every year since.
The 2022 Bay View Week of Handbells
This year’s Week of Handbells was a bit different for us, for an important reason; we now have our own Bay View cottage! We bought this Victorian cottage in October 2019, when we became members of the Bay View Association. It was built around 1887, and is a quirky little place, with uneven floors and some interesting features!
We appreciated being able to be “at home” between rehearsals, and to relax in our own place at the end of the day. In previous years, we’ve stayed in hotels, and also rented another of the Victorian cottages on campus. Our cottage is at the bottom of the hill, so we got plenty of exercise walking to and from rehearsals in the auditorium! We also had a steady stream of visitors, and enjoyed giving cottage tours to our handbell friends.
The 2022 event
Once again, Larry had the opportunity to play the aluminum bass bells, in the Deep Pit. Carla played AB5, as coordinator of the Position 7 team. Rehearsals went smoothly this year, and everyone was thankful to be back after the long break. We also heard that Bay View Association members were happy to see the return of the bell ringers, and eagerly awaited the Thursday evening concert.
The repertoire for the 2022 Week of Handbells was as follows:
Festive Praises(Fred Gramann) Tales of the Great Water (Sandra Eithun) Finale (Widor, arr. Fred Gramann) The Entertainer (Joplin, transcribed by Paul Kingbury) – available from Choraegus Intrepid (Jason Krug) Change Ring Prelude on ‘Fred Gramann’ (Jantz Black) Aurora (Matthew Compton) Aria (Donald Allured) São Paulo (Elizabeth Peters) The Sound of Silence (Paul Simon, arr. Matthew Compton) Bulwarkana (Alex Guebert) Puttin’ on the Ritz (Berlin, arr. Hart Morris) The Lord Bless You and Keep You (Peter Lutkin)
There were five winners of the Donald E. Allured Composition Award at this year’s concert. Was this a record? Sandra Eithun’s Tales of the Great Water was performed for the first time at the 2022 Week of Handbells, and we were all happy that she came to the concert to hear it!
Catherine McMichael, Sandra Eithun, Larry Sue, Alex Guebert and Matthew Compton
As usual, the week was a very busy one. Rehearsals are long and intense, and there isn’t a lot of spare time, although we always appreciate the Bay View sunsets, the opportunity to gather with friends on the Wednesday “evening off”, and the Bay View Memorial Garden, where the flowers never disappoint.
What’s next?
Now that we’ve put away our 2022 Week of Handbells music, we’re moving on to more duet performances, writing and playing new music, and preparing for the holiday season. We’ll still be spending as much time as we can at Bay View – driving back and forth between Holland and Petoskey – until the time comes to close up the cottage for the winter months. Before too long, it will be time to sign up for the 2023 event – and we’re already looking forward to it!
This spring we were excited to have the opportunity to play handbells on Mackinac Island again! Mackinac Island is situated between Michigan’s Upper and Lower peninsulas, and it’s a beautiful place to visit. Cars are not allowed on the island, so it really is like stepping back in time. Horses are brought to the island every spring, and they spend the summer pulling carriages, carrying freight around the island, and giving rides to visitors.
Before this year’s event, the most recent Handbell Musicians of America Area 5 spring conference on the island took place in 2018. We were the featured artists for that event. We had such an enjoyable time there, and we were happy that the event could finally go ahead this spring. This time, we didn’t have the pressure of preparing the opening concert, or teaching classes (although we’d have been happy to teach if we’d been asked). It meant that we were able to do more tourist-things and treat it as a much needed mini-vacation!
The conference started on the Friday, with registration beginning on the Thursday evening. We decided to go across to the island on Wednesday, to give ourselves time to settle in and enjoy some of the sights while it was quiet. This turned out to be a really good idea!
Spring takes a long time to arrive in northern Michigan. On our way to the ferry in Mackinac City, we stopped to look at this huge tower of ice. A nearby signed called it the Ice Tree. The ice had started melting away – but there was still a lot left. This gave us a clue that the temperature on Mackinac Island might be a little chillier than at home in Holland.
Arriving on Mackinac Island
We took the Shepler’s ferry from Mackinac City to the island, and had a short and uneventful journey there. We arrived on the island, and decided we could manage to carry our stuff up the hill to Grand Hotel. The wind was blowing fiercely and it was a lot colder than we’d anticipated. Still, we coped, and soon reached the hotel, where we checked in and settled into our room.
Each of the guest rooms at Grand Hotel is individually decorated. We were there before the hotel officially opened for the season, so we could peek inside unoccupied rooms! The one in the photo above was ours; below are a couple of others:
Time to explore the island!
We spent Wednesday evening, and most of the day on Thursday, exploring the island. The handbell conference was being held before the hotel (and the island) officially opened for summer visitors. That meant that a lot of the shops and restaurants weren’t open yet. There was a fair amount of activity downtown, though, as the shops and hotels prepared for the influx of guests. We enjoyed walking along the uncrowded streets and beaches, and admiring some of the beautiful houses… and the horses! It’s always fun to play the “which house would you choose?” game. We can all dream, right?
We wouldn’t like to give the impression that this trip was more about a vacation than handbells… but we did have a lot of fun before the event started. There’s so much to see in this part of Michigan! We walked around 15 miles during the first couple of days on the island.
Rehearsing our 8-bell duets at Grand Hotel
We decided to play through some of our 8-bell duets on the Wednesday. We’re thankful to Grand Hotel for allowing us to rehearse in their Cupola Bar, on the top floor of the hotel. It was a lovely place to practise, with views across the lake. Here’s a video of our 8-bell arrangement of Amazing Grace:
If you’d like to see all the videos we recorded at the hotel, you can see them in a showcase on our Vimeo channel.
The handbell conference started on Friday, with the first massed ringing rehearsal and an excellent concert by Quadrants Handbell Quartet. We didn’t count how many handbell choirs were at the event, but the auditorium was full. There were classes on various topics too. We attended one about handbell music for small groups, featuring some of our 8-, 12- and 16-bell music, along with music by other arrangers. It’s wonderful to know that there’s so much music available for small groups now. Fred Gramann was the director for the event, and we had a surprisingly large number of people in the audience for the final concert on Saturday afternoon. We performed pieces by Fred Gramann, Linda Lamb, Sandra Eithun, Jason Krug and Dan Edwards, and all were well received.
Thanks to HMA Area 5!
After the pandemic-related delay, it was wonderful to gather and play handbells on Mackinac Island again! Our thanks go to all at Area 5 of the Handbell Musicians of America – for all the hard work that went into organising this year’s spring conference. It takes a lot of time and effort to create an event like this, and we appreciate everyone who worked so hard to make it a success.
So, when will we get to play handbells on Mackinac Island again? That’s a good question. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that we won’t have to wait too long!
You can now watch the Kalamazoo Ringers’ Christmas concert On a Winter’s Night on YouTube! If you missed the live-stream on Facebook, you can now catch up at your leisure. The whole concert is available to watch on the Kalamazoo Ringers’ official YouTube channel:
There are also individual videos of each of the concert performances, so you can catch up with your favorites, and share the videos with your friends and on social media.
We were honored that the concert contained several Choraegus handbell arrangements:
We enjoyed playing this 16-bell piece with Rhonda and Martha – in our house in Holland, Michigan! The beauty of a small-ensemble concert is being able to rehearse and record in smaller venues, and it’s fun to invite the audience into our homes for a short while.
Of the Father’s Love Begotten
This is a very recent arrangement – so new that we haven’t even published it yet. It’s an interesting twist on the Divinum Mysterium plainchant melody, familiar to many handbell ringers because of Fred Gramann’s famous arrangement. This is a quirky and fun arrangement, with the addition of a cajón part. We decided that a Kalamazoo Ringers Christmas concert was a good reason/excuse to put a recording together. If all goes to plan, the sheet music will be available to purchase from Choraegus in May 2022.
Wexford Carol is another of our 16-bell arrangements. It’s a traditional Irish carol that’s full of dissonance and rich chords. This arrangement has been popular with Choraegus customers this year! Rhonda and Martha joined us for this performance.
This 8-bell arrangement of the Huron Carol lends itself well to bass handbells! We met with Rhonda and John to rehearse and perform Matthew Prins’s arrangement of Fum, Fum, Fum. At the last minute, we decided it could be fun to drop this one a couple of octaves and see how it would sound. We think it worked well!
We’ve been playing this 8-bell arrangement for several years now, and always enjoy it. It brings back happy memories of a fun Christmas performance in California in 2014! We were thankful for the opportunity to record it again fo this year’s Kalamazoo Ringers Christmas concert.
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
This is another recent arrangement from Choraegus. It’s pure fun to play! It has mixed meters, a lively feel, and a challenging flute addition. Our talented Holland-neighbors Martha and Gary Matthews joined us for this performance. We’ll be publishing this one in spring or summer 2022, along with a 5-octave version!
We hope that the Kalamazoo Ringers will be able to get back to in-person rehearsals and concerts in 2022. In some ways, the group’s time apart has been good for us; we’ve all been able to develop our skills in small-ensemble ringing. Having said that, we’re all very much looking forward to being able to make music together again!
If you have questions about any of the Choraegus music from the Kalamazoo Ringers’ Christmas concert, please get in touch with us, and we’ll be happy to help! We encourage you to share the Christmas concert videos with your friends, and we hope to see many of you at one of the Kalamazoo Ringers’ concerts in 2022!
Here’s a Christmas handbell duet that could be perfect for anyone looking for something unusual this holiday season. The melody is a traditional Normandy carol tune that was first published with the Away in a Manger lyrics in 1911. It’s a change from the Murray or Kirkpatrick tunes usually heard with this carol, and we played it for the Kalamazoo Ringers’ online Home for Christmas concert last year!
More information about Away in a Manger
This arrangement is for bells from D5 to A6, with piano accompaniment. It’s not difficult to play, and there’s no requirement for traveling 4-in-hand or any advanced solo-ringing techniques. A piano accompaniment mp3 is available to download separately if you don’t have an accompanist, or if you’d like to practise on your own. The sheet music for this Christmas handbell duet is available to download from Choraegus.
Buying Choraegus handbell music
When you purchase Away in a Manger from the Choraegus site, the music score will come to you as a PDF file. That means you’ll be responsible for printing your own music, and you won’t receive anything in the mail. When you’ve downloaded your music, your one-time payment entitles you to print sufficient copies for your group. If you prefer to split the parts between more than two people, that’s okay; you don’t need to pay for extra copies, as long as you’re only using the music for one ensemble.
Please read our licensing agreement for full information about this. If you’re new to buying music from Choraegus, we recommend our step-by-step guide. We designed this to take you through the process in a (we hope) stress-free way!
Purchasing this arrangement gives you no-fuss permission for performance, broadcasting, live-streaming and online video-sharing. Please take some time to read about what you’re allowed to do with Choraegus handbell music. In these times of live-streaming and online concerts, it’s particularly important that we all understand and follow the laws concerning performance licensing and copyright.
Any questions?
If you have any questions about buying or playing Choraegus handbell music, please look at our Frequently-Asked Questions. If you don’t find the information you’re looking for, please contact us and we’ll be happy to help.
