Today marks the first day of the 2015 Bay View Week of Handbells! The next four days will be full of music at the John M. Hall Auditorium, as more than a hundred handbell musicians rehearse together under the direction of Carl Wiltse.
You can find out more about this event, and why it will always hold a special place in our hearts, by reading our recent post about the Bay View Week of Handbellsand taking a look at our gallery of photos.
Come to the concert!
If you’re in the area, and you’d like to attend the free concert, there’s no need to book tickets in advance. The concert will be held on Thursday, August 20, 2015 at 8:00pm in the John M. Hall Auditorium, 1715 Encampment Ave., Petoskey, Michigan. An offering will be taken to benefit the Bay View Association Music Scholarship Fund. You should plan to arrive in plenty of time to get good seats, because it’s a popular concert!
Here’s a recording from last year’s Week of Handbells – it’s Larry’s original composition A Snail’s Pace.
As usual, Pierpont Productions will make a professional recording of the concert. If you’d like your own copy of the recording, you can order one from Pierpont Productions at 231-347-4488. Alternatively, fill out the order envelope available on the day of the concert.
We’d love to see you at the 2015 Bay View Week of Handbells!
Unlike many of our handbell friends, we didn’t make it to this year’s National Seminar – Pinnacle – in Dallas, Texas. We read lots of news about this exciting event on Facebook. The whole thing was so awesome that it even had its own hashtag on social media – #Pinnacle15.
We’re not the kind of people to sit around and sulk because we were missing out on all the fun in Texas. Instead, we decided to have a handbell adventure of our own here in California. We packed our bells and equipment into the car, and away we went!
Here we are at our destination – PINNACLES!
Our very own handbell event
We checked in at a hotel in the nearby town of Soledad, and our handbell event – #Pinnacles15 – began.
Here’s a picture of the church where we held our Friday evening duet session. We played through some new and unpublished music outside the church of Our Lady of Solitude.
And here’s our opening night dinner. Hey, put your phone away, Larry!
Here’s Larry wearing our event t-shirt:
Here are some of our bells in the hotel room:
Here’s Carla wearing her “Hug Larry if you love Tico Tico” shirt:
Larry held a handbell polishing session:
Wait. Handbell polishing? THAT’S not how you do it, Larry!
Here’s Larry wearing his “Kiss me if you love Tico Tico” shirt. These shirts were worn by handbell musicians from Area 12 at Distinctly Bronze West in February 2015.
Here’s Carla, showing her skills at multi-tasking as she works on music for the Bay View Week of Handbells while drinking coffee!
We enjoyed the opportunity to do some sightseeing in the area too. Here’s a picture of the Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad, where we played some of our duets inside and outside the chapel on Saturday morning:
And here we are at the Mission San Juan Bautista, which we visited on Saturday afternoon:
Our handbell event was over far too quickly, because we had to be home on Sunday morning, to play duets in a church service in San Jose. But we had a fun couple of days – and you can see more photos from our trip on our Facebook page!
What do you do when it’s the Fourth of July, and you’ve finished eating party food and having fun with family and friends? The answer is… play handbell duets, of course!
An impromptu handbell duet performance
We were in Hayward, California for a family gathering, and we decided we needed to burn off some of the calories we’d consumed at lunch time. We were driving in the direction of home, and noticed the Chapel of the Chimes. Suddenly looked like a great location for a Concert With No Audience!
The Chapel of the Chimes is a 61-acre cemetery, crematorium and funeral home complex. It didn’t appear that we’d be disturbing anyone with our music, so we set up our table and bells. We played duets for around forty minutes! It was a great opportunity to play through some of the music for our visit to Los Altos Lutheran Church the following day. We also brought out some of the older pieces we hadn’t played for a very long time!
We had the usual interesting challenges that go with outdoor performances – a strong breeze, traffic noise, and even some festive firecrackers! The location and the sunshine also made it a very stripy-looking performance, as you can see from the video!
The following pieces are on the video:
America, the Beautiful
Come, Christians, Join to Sing
Drink to Me Only
Beautiful Dreamer
A Mighty Fortress
Moreton Bay
Great is Thy Faithfulness
Danny Boy
Botany Bay
Earth and All Stars
I Need Thee Every Hour
The King of Love My Shepherd Is
Allegro
We hope you enjoyed our handbell duets at the Chapel of the Chimes. All the pieces we played are available (or coming soon!) from Choraegus. If you’d like to book us for a performance with an audience, please let us know!
We’re counting down to the Bay View Week of Handbells!
So, what is the Bay View Week of Handbells, and why is it something special for us? Why are we counting down the days until we get there? We’ll try to explain some of the magic here.
The Bay View Week of Handbells takes place every year in Bay View, Michigan. Just over a hundred handbell musicians gather together for several days of intense rehearsals, after which we perform a public concert. Donald Allured founded the Week of Handbells in 1978, and Carl Wiltse is the current director of the event. It’s for people who enjoy the challenge of spending time learning the music, and performing to a professional standard. And yes, even though the music is challenging and the rehearsals are intense, we still manage to have fun!
The Week of Handbells is part of our story
For us, the Week of Handbells is particularly special because of the role it played in our long-distance relationship story. Our story started several years ago when we met and became friends online. By the end of 2009 we were spending several hours every day “talking” on Facebook Chat. Our friendship turned into a relationship, and we began to make plans to meet in person for the first time. Our first “real life” meeting took place in August 2010, when Carla travelled from London to Chicago O’Hare. From there, we flew together to Traverse City, where we rented a car and drove to Bay View.
Here is a photo of us before the concert at our very first Bay View Week of Handbells.
Our second Week of Handbells
After our first in-person meeting in 2010, we had to wait a whole year before we could see each other again. During our months apart, we decided for certain that we wanted to spend our future together. We travelled back to Michigan in August 2011 for our second Week of Handbells. That was a busy week for us! Before the start of the event, we made a special journey to Miner’s North in Traverse City to pick up some rings. Then we drove to the Old Mission Point Lighthouse, where Larry proposed, and Carla said yes!
We announced our engagement to our friends at the Week of Handbells, at the evening reception after the first day of rehearsals. Here’s one of our favourite photos of us – taken by Kim Finison at Bay View in 2011.
August 2011 was also the time when our set of Malmark handbells made it across the ocean in Carla’s luggage. Larry transferred them to his suitcase for the journey to California.
After our week in Michigan in 2011, we went back to our separate homes, and soon after that we started the US fiancée visa process to bring Carla from England to California. Carla’s K-1 visa was approved at the end of May 2012, and the race was on to get everything organised for the big move. We managed to time it to coincide with the Bay View Week of Handbells in August!
Closing the distance!
August arrived, and Larry flew to England to collect Carla and her son, and the three of us travelled together to Chicago O’Hare. There, our onward flight was cancelled and we were forced to spend an uncomfortable night camping in the airport. Strangely enough, the makeshift camp was at Gate K1. That’s the same number as the visa Carla had applied for! Bay View Week of Handbells 2012 was a very special one for us, because, for the first time, we didn’t have to say goodbye to each other at the end of the event. It was an amazing feeling to be able to pack up our things and travel home to California together, without having to do that horrible airport goodbye stuff that’s so painful for long-distance couples.
Since then, we’ve been to the Week of Handbells twice more. To say we’re looking forward to the next one would be an understatement. Well, we’re counting down the days on our website, right? So yes, we’re excited!
Even without all the memories that make the Week of Handbells so special to us personally, it’s still an incredibly wonderful handbell event. We always tell people that if we could only go to one handbell event in a year, this would be the one we’d choose. After all, where else can you play handbells in an Auditorium that’s named after a Hall?
And where else can you walk around during your lunch break and see houses like this one?
At the Bay View Week of Handbells, we have Tiara Tuesday!
We have the opportunity to play some exciting and challenging music, which each person works hard to prepare during the weeks and months before the event. That gives us four days to put together the finishing touches as a group, in time to give a superb concert on the Thursday evening.
Apart from the beautiful location, the exciting music and all the happy memories the Week of Handbells holds for us, we know that it’s the people there who make this event so special. Our annual trip to Bay View feels like a journey home; and the friends we’ve made there feel like family to us. For just a few days in August, more than a hundred people are brought together by the music of handbells. We wouldn’t miss it for the world.
Fear a’ Bhàta (also known as The Boatman) is a beautiful Scottish-Gaelic melody. We first saw in an old songbook published in 1927. Directed to be sung “with longing”, it tells the story of a young girl who is in love with a fisherman who has sailed away… and every night she watches the ocean, waiting for his boat to return.
“How often haunting the highest hilltop I scan the ocean, thy sails to see Will’t come tonight, love, will’t come tomorrow Will’t ever come, love, to comfort me?”
A long-distance love story
The words of the song tell how her friends think she’s wrong to wait for this man, and that he’s lied to her and is unlikely to return. She wonders if he’s remembered the promises he made before he left, and sings about the silken gown and gold ring that she’s never likely to own.
We assumed until recently that the story was a heartbreaking work of fiction. But it turns out that the song was written in the late 19th century by Sìne NicFhionnlaigh (Jean Finlayson) about her own life and the struggles she endured while her fiancé was away at sea. Best of all, shortly after the song was written they got married. It’s good to know that the story ended happily, after all.
Here’s a video of our handbell arrangement of this piece, recorded at our concert with Philadelphia Bronze in King of Prussia, PA.
If you’d like to play Fear a’ Bhàta, you can purchase and download the music from Choraegus.
Information about buying handbell music from Choraegus
Purchasing this arrangement gives you permission to print and maintain up to four copies for your handbell group – so you only need to pay once. Purchase also gives permission for performance, broadcasting, live-streaming and video-sharing online. See our licensing agreement for full details. Please remember to mention the title and arranger of the piece on video-sharing sites, social media and any printed materials such as concert programs.
Please note that our music is designed to be downloaded as PDFs. You’ll be responsible for printing your own music, and you won’t receive anything in the mail.
If you haven’t purchased music online from Choraegus before, you might like to look at our step-by-step guide. We designed this guide to help you navigate the purchase and download process in a (we hope!) stress-free way.
Any questions?
If you have any questions about our music, please start by reading our Frequently-Asked Questions. Please contact us if you don’t find the answers you need, and we’ll do what we can to help!
We were so excited to make our first trip to Philadelphia to perform in a concert as guests of Philadelphia Bronze, a group of talented handbell musicians dedicated to excellence in the art and joy of handbell ringing.
We arrived in Philadelphia in the evening of Thursday, May 28th, and had the opportunity to do some sightseeing on Friday, including a fascinating tour of the Malmark factory where our handbells were made, and a visit to the Liberty Bell. On Saturday we visited Valley Forge Park, and then spent the rest of the day meeting and rehearsing with members of Philadelphia Bronze, before the evening’s concert.
The concert took place on May 30th at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in King of Prussia, and the program was as follows, with our pieces shown in purple, and Philadelphia Bronze’s in… well, bronze-ish, perhaps:
Allegro, from Concerto in A Minor …………………. Antonio Vivaldi, arr. Larry Sue
Fear a’ Bhàta (The Boatman) ………………………… Sìne NicFhionnlaigh, arr. Larry Sue
The Butterfly ……………………………………………….. Irish slip jig, arr. Larry Sue
Fantasy on Kingsfold ……………………………………. KINGSFOLD, arr. Dean Wagner
Jazz Pizzicato ……………………………………………… Leroy Anderson, arr. Martha Lynn Thompson
Great is Thy Faithfulness ………………………………. William Runyan, arr. Larry Sue
Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee ……………………….. Ludwig von Beethoven, arr. Larry Sue (with additional organ score arr. T. Paul Rosas, performed by Ross Boerner)
Silver and Bronze …………………………………………. Larry Sue (with Martha Alford, flute)
Fountains of Light, from the “St. Francis Suite” .. Kevin McChesney (Martha Alford, flute)
Grizzly’s Peak …………………………………………….. “Traditional” Irish-American jig, arr. Larry Sue
Greensleeves ………………………………………………. Traditional English melody, arr. Larry Sue
America, the Beautiful ………………………………….. Samuel A. Ward, arr. Larry Sue
Good Christian Men, Rejoice ………………………….Traditional, arr. Kimberlee F. Strepka
Spiritual Boogie! ………………………………………….. American spirituals, arr. Larry Sue
Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken ………………. F. J. Haydn, arr. Linda McKechnie (Ross Boerner, organ)
Here is a video of some of the highlights of the evening:
Our sincere thanks go to all the members of Philadelphia Bronze, who made us so welcome – with particular thanks to Martha, their director. We’re also thankful to Risë and Sarah for acting as our tour guides during our trip. We enjoyed every moment of our time in PA, and hope to go back there someday!
We’re always interested in collaborating with other groups – so if you’d like to book us to perform in a concert with your musical group, contact us and let’s find out if we can make it happen!
Exciting news! We’ve been invited to Pennsylvania at the end of this month, to perform in concert with Philadelphia Bronze!
This will be our first-ever trip to the Philadelphia area, which looks like an interesting place to visit! We’ll only be there for three days, but we’re already busy making plans for the trip. We’ll definitely include a visit to Malmark Bellcraftsmen, the manufacturers of the bells we use for playing our duets.
More information about the concert
The concert with Philadelphia Bronze will take place on Saturday, May 30th,2015 at 7:00pm. It will be at the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd, 132 E. Valley Forge Road, King of Prussia, PA 19406. We’ll perform some brand-new and unpublished duets in this concert. We’ll also share a new piece written by Larry for eight handbells and flute. We’re looking forward to hearing some exciting music from Philadelphia Bronze too!
On Sunday, May 31st, we’ll play some of our duets during the morning worship service at Newtown United Methodist Church. Then we’ll fly back to California later that day.
We’ll be posting more information about our trip on our Facebook page in the coming week. You can find Philadelphia Bronze on Facebook too!
Last weekend, we saw the opportunity for another Concert with No Audience in Walnut Grove, California. We set up by the side doors of the Presbyterian church there, and played for an hour or so. There was no audience except the passing traffic, the birds, and a couple of passers-by.
We enjoy giving these “concerts” from time to time. In reality, a concert with no audience is probably not much more than another rehearsal. What makes it different is the possibility that an audience might arrive without warning. When we rehearse, we go back and practise passages of the music that need improvement. When we give a concert, whether to an audience or not, we’re selecting pieces that are performance-ready, and playing them to the best of our ability.
Here’s a video with excerpts from some of the pieces we played, all of which are currently available (or soon to be available) from Choraegus.
Would you like to host a concert – with an audience?
If you’d like to book us to perform a concert at your church, or a performance for your event, please contact us. We’ll bring the music, and you can provide the audience!
In the Garden was written in 1912 by C. Austin Miles. We received a request for an eight-bell arrangement of this much-loved hymn – so here it is!
How to purchase the sheet music
If you’d like to play In the Garden, the sheet music is available to purchase, download and print from Choraegus. Purchasing this arrangement gives you permission to print and maintain up to four copies for your handbell group – so you only need to pay once. Purchase also gives permission for performance, broadcasting, live-streaming and video-sharing online. See our licensing agreement for full details. Please remember to mention the title and arranger of the piece on video-sharing sites, social media and any printed materials.
Please also note that our music is designed as downloadable PDFs. You’ll be responsible for printing your own music, and you won’t receive anything in the mail.
If you haven’t purchased music online from Choraegus before, you might like to look at our step-by-step guide, designed to help you navigate the purchase and download process in a (we hope!) stress-free way.
Any questions?
If you have any questions about our music, please start by reading our Frequently-Asked Questions. Please contact us if you don’t find the answers you need, and we’ll be happy to help!
The SECC Handbell Festival was a great success. More than a hundred skilled young handbell musicians attended, and worked very hard to prepare for the concert. Larry had the privilege of being their clinician for the event.
We were both so impressed by the skill and dedication of the young musicians at this event. The choirs arrived well-prepared, and stayed focused throughout the rehearsals. Their individual performances were of a very high standard, and they performed the massed ringing pieces very well. If you’d like to see some of the highlights from the SECC Handbell Festival, here’s a video with excerpts from the rehearsals and the evening concert. The concert featured music by Arnold Sherman, Kevin McChesney, William Gross, Jason Krug, Linda McKechnie, Tim Waugh, Michael Glasgow, Catherine McMichael, Matthew Compton and our very own Larry Sue. A snippet from our performance of our eight-bell duet “Great is Thy Faithfulness” appears about 18 minutes into the video.
We also very much enjoyed this performance of Matthew Compton’s arrangement of “Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel?”, by Bellissimo, a group from Redlands Advent Academy. Here’s a video from the event:
If you’d like to see more photos from this event, you can find them on our Facebook page!
34th Annual SECC Handbell Festival, Riverside, CA – 2015
