June 28, 2015

Counting Down to the Bay View Week of Handbells!

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.

Bay View Week of Handbells - Larry and Carla

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!

Tiara Tuesday at Bay View Week of Handbells

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.

For more photos, see our Bay View Week of Handbells Photo Gallery. Watch our website and Facebook page for more information as we continue counting down the days to this year’s event!

June 7, 2015

Fear a’ Bhàta – A Long-Distance Love Song

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!

Fear a Bhata - a long-distance love story

June 5, 2015

Our Concert with Philadelphia Bronze

Larry and Carla concert with Philadelphia Bronze

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)

Elegie …………………………………………………………. Jules Massenet, arr. Karen Roth

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!

May 21, 2015

A Handbell Concert with Philadelphia Bronze!

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!

May 16, 2015

A Concert With No Audience – in Walnut Grove

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!

Concert with No Audience - Choraegus — Choraegus – Bringing Music to the People

May 13, 2015

New Music for Handbells – In the Garden – for 8 Bells

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!

March 22, 2015

Photos and Videos from the 34th Annual SECC Handbell Festival

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!

Handbell duo Larry and Carla Sue at the 34th Annual SECC Handbell Festival, Riverside, CA — 34th Annual SECC Handbell Festival, Riverside, CA – 2015

February 22, 2015

Preparing for Distinctly Bronze West – with Practice and Graph Theory

Our trip to Portland will be happening in just a few days’ time. We’ll be taking part in Distinctly Bronze West, a fun and challenging event where over a hundred experienced handbell musicians will gather together to rehearse and perform some exciting music, under the direction of Dr. Bill Payn.

This year’s repertoire is as follows:

Carillon on a Ukrainian Bell Carol – Gerald Near, transcr. Sondra Tucker
Consecration – William Payn
Down the River (Riding the Rogue) – Jason Krug
Festive Dance – Georges Bizet, transcr. Kevin McChesney
Gravitas – Michael J. Glasgow
Gwerzy – D. Armstrong/C. O’Snodaigh, arr. Clint Hagen
Hallelujah – Leonard Cohen, arr. Joel Raney
Horizons – William Payn
Light of Peace – Veronica Bigham and Derek Hakes
Passacaglia – G.F. Handel, transcr. William Griffin Beckenhorst
Requiem – William Payn
Tico Tico, No Fuba – Zequinha de Abreu, arr. Larry Sue

Preparing for a high-level handbell event

One of the challenges about Distinctly Bronze, and other high-level handbell events, is that it’s essential to know the music very well before you go there. It’s not the kind of handbell event where you can get there, sight-read the music, and hope for the best. You have to be familiar with each piece – and “learning the notes” is just the first part of that. If you think about it, playing handbells in a large group is like being just part of one big instrument; imagine a piano where you have just a handful of notes that are your responsibility (and they’re not necessarily all notes that are next to each other on the keyboard), and other people have control of the other notes around you.

The interesting challenge is to be able to play your notes at the right time, fitting them between other people’s notes, and playing them with the right touch to match what’s happening around you. The goal is to play your bells in such a way that the listener hears the music as a whole, and isn’t distracted by the fact that different bells are being played in different ways by more than a hundred different people. Events like these are not about individuals; they’re about a group of people making music together – and that takes teamwork and practice.

Using graph theory to position bass handbells

So we’ve been preparing for this since Christmas; annotating the scores to make sure we don’t miss a tempo change, or forget to pick up a bell or handchime in time to play it; marking difficult passages to remind us not to miss those accidentals or tricky rhythms. Yes, all those scribbles really do mean something important! And even the scribbles in the picture below mean something – at least, they do to Larry, who uses his knowledge of graph theory to help work out the best way to position the bass bells for each piece.

We’ve also been playing the music on actual bells, over and over – because even when you feel that you’ve stared at the notes on the paper until your eyes are burning, there’s no substitute for picking up some bells (preferably the right ones) and making sure all your ideas are actually possible – or will become possible with a lot more practice!

The upcoming performance of Larry’s arrangement of Tico Tico will be the first one ever! The piece has been the subject of much discussion among DB West participants, as we all get to grips with sharing bells with neighbours, changing bells at high speed, and working out the best ways to deal with fast chromatic passages. It’s going to be exciting to see how this piece sounds in performance next Sunday!

We’re looking forward to this year’s Distinctly Bronze West. Full details of the concert are below. If you’re in the Portland area on Sunday, March 1st, we’d love to see you there!

January 31, 2015

The Redding Bronze Concert is Today!

The Redding Bronze concert is today! Northern California’s premier handbell ensemble has been working hard to bring you an exciting one-hour concert of music you’ll enjoy. Larry is the guest director for this event, and the ringers have come from northern California, Oregon and Nevada to take part.

The Redding Bronze concert today will include a varied selection of handbell arrangements and original compositions. We hope you’ll enjoy Michael Joy’s Dorian Dance, Lee Afdahl’s beautiful arrangement of Beach Spring, and Paul McKlveen’s lively Guantanamera. The performance will take place at 4:00pm at First Presbyterian Church in Redding. There’s no charge for admission, but we’ll be taking a freewill offering to help with costs.

Any questions?

Redding Bronze is an annual event, hosted by the Carillons Handbell Choir, a Redding-based ensemble. Please contact us if you have any questions, or if you need more information about this event or future Redding Bronze events. You can also get in touch with us on our Facebook page, where will be posting photos from this year’s event. If we don’t have the answers, we can put you in touch with someone who can help. We hope to see you at the concert later today!

January 30, 2015

On our Way to Redding Bronze!

Today we’ll be taking a long road trip – from Mountain View to Redding – to take part in Redding Bronze. After spending nearly three years in a long-distance relationship, we think road trips together are fun – and we always look forward to this one. We’ll be driving for several hours, and will be stopping en route to search for Cherry Sours, our traditional road-trip snack. You’ll notice that they have no fat and no cholesterol – so they’re practically “health food”! Yeah, right. But we’re going to eat them anyway.

Redding Bronze is a fun and challenging handbell event! It takes place from Friday evening until Saturday evening, at First Presbyterian Church, 2315 Placer Street, Redding, CA 96001. Larry will be directing, and this year’s repertoire is as follows: