We’re coming to the end of our exciting holiday season of Christmas handbell performances. This was our busiest season yet, and we’d like to thank everyone who helped to make the last few weeks so much fun!
Our Christmas started early this year, with a Holiday Open House event. We enjoyed playing handbell duets at Ditto Upscale Resale, here in Holland. It was a great way to welcome the season. It was also good to check that we still had the stamina to play for three hours at a time without collapsing. It’s a useful skill when we play our duets at the Salvation Army Red Kettle!
Christmas handbell duets at the Ditto Upscale Resale Holiday Open House
We continued our season with performances at several church events. These included a Christmas By Candlelight event in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and our first visit to Cultivate Community Church in Hamilton.
We’ve very much enjoyed being part of the arts community here in Holland. It’s been fun to share our music at community events such as the Kerstmarkt. This is an annual European-style Christmas market in downtown Holland. When Carla lived in England, a highlight of Christmas was being able to visit traditional markets in London, Bath and Lincoln. Even though the market here in Holland is on a much smaller scale, the atmosphere is the same. The chilly weather also makes it extra festive! Our bells survived the cold, and we managed to play for several hours on a Saturday morning and Friday evening. Here’s a video of one of the pieces we played there:
If you’d like to play this piece, the sheet music is available from Choraegus!
Back to the Van Andel Institute
This year we played Christmas music for residents and their guests at several senior living communities and care home Christmas parties. It’s always fun to share our Christmas music with appreciative audiences of all ages. We were excited to make another visit to the Van Andel Institute, to welcome guests to their employees’ holiday party. The Van Andel Institute definitely gets the prize for the most-impressive Christmas tree!
Larry at the 2018 Van Andel Institute Employees’ Holiday Party
We were happy to continue our collaboration with the Zeeland Community Band, joining with them for their popular annual Christmas concert.
The Zeeland Community Band, directed by Rose Wiersma – Christmas Concert Carla at the Zeeland Community Band Christmas Concert
Special thanks go to:
Ditto Upscale Resale, Holland, MI The Kerstmarkt in Downtown Holland, MI Friendship Christian Reformed Church, Byron Center, MI Century Club of Holland, MI Hope College Academy of Senior Professionals (HASP) P.E.O. Sisterhood of Holland, MI Spring Valley Church, Kalamazoo, MI Van Andel Institute, Grand Rapids, MI First Presbyterian Church of Holland, MI Cultivate Community Church, Hamilton, MI D&W Fresh Market, Holland, MI The Salvation Army of Holland, MI The Village of Heather Hills, Grand Rapids, MI Zeeland Community Band Freedom Village of Holland, MI Resthaven Care Center, Holland, MI Friends of the Gary Byker Library, Hudsonville, MI Resthaven Maple Woods, Holland, MI Grandville Ladies’ Literary Club, Grandville, MI Kentwood Women’s Club, Kentwood, MI Third Reformed Church of Holland, MI
Thanks to everyone who helped to make this such an exciting holiday season for us. If you’d like to book us for your event in the coming year, please let us know!
Christmas by Candlelight at Spring Valley Church, Kalamazoo
Silent night, holy night, All is calm, all is bright Round yon virgin mother and child. Holy infant, so tender and mild, Sleep in heavenly peace, Sleep in heavenly peace.
After more than six years of arranging and performing eight-bell Christmas music, we finally managed to publish an arrangement of the popular Austrian carol Silent Night.
We recorded our video at the Kerstmarkt. This is a European-style Christmas market that takes place annually in downtown Holland, Michigan. It was a cold, breezy and rainy Saturday morning, but it’s still one of our favorite events of the holiday season.
Would you like to play this arrangement?
If you’re still looking for Christmas music for handbells, Silent Night is available to purchase, download and print from Choraegus. For Christmas 2018, you can get it for the special price of just $3, with permission to print up to 4 copies for your group.
If you haven’t bought music from us before, please read the licensing agreement before making your purchase. We also recommend our step-by-step guide to buying music from Choraegus. As with all our music for handbells, Silent Night comes to you as a digital download. You’ll be responsible for printing the music yourself, and you won’t receive anything in the mail.
Any questions?
If you have any questions about our music for handbells, Silent Night in particular, or anything else on our website, please ask! You can look at our Frequently-Asked Questions, but if you don’t find the information you need, please contact us and we’ll be happy to help.
Are you looking for handbells for a Christmas event? West Michigan’s smallest handbell choir is here to help. We don’t have a lot of availability left for December, but we’re still open to last-minute bookings!
Handbells are perfect for the holidays!
Handbell music can bring a magical and festive atmosphere to any Christmas or holiday event. We can give a seasonal performance of carols and holiday music. We can provide background music to add that special welcoming touch to your corporate event, community group celebration, winter wedding, or holiday gathering. Nothing says Christmas quite as well as the traditional sound of English handbells. Our duet performances can bring the sounds of the season to hotel lobbies, department stores, airports, shopping boutiques, community groups and private house parties alike.
The 2018 holiday season is fast approaching, and we’re looking forward to some festive performances around West Michigan. We’ll be playing our handbell duets at “Christmas by Candlelight” events, corporate holiday parties, Christmas luncheons, and worship services, as well as performing with the Zeeland Community Band in their Christmas concert on December 10th. We’ll be welcoming in the season at the Holiday Open House event at Ditto Upscale Resale on November 16th, and we’ll be celebrating the return of the annual Kerstmarkt (Christmas Market) in Downtown Holland on Friday, November 23rd and Friday, November 30th.
Book a handbell duo for your holiday event!
As a handbell duo, we take up far less room than a traditional bell choir would. That makes us ideal for venues where space is limited! Our holiday schedule is busy this year, but we still have a few dates available, so if you’ need handbells for your Christmas event, you’re welcome to get in touch with us. If we can fit your event into our schedule, we will. If we can’t, let’s plan early for next year!
Contact us with some details about your event, and we’ll check our availability and provide a quote for you. Handbells are the perfect way to celebrate the holiday season!
We were honored to be invited to present the 21st Annual Rietberg Concert at Third Reformed Church of Holland, Michigan. This annual concert is a tribute to the 45 years of service of Roger and Evelyn Rietberg to the music program of Third Reformed Church. This year’s concert was given in memory of Evelyn Rietberg, who changed the lives of so many children at the church.
Normally at this time of year, we’d have started rehearsing our Christmas music. However, this year we had two fall concert performances. That gave us a good reason to postpone practising most of the Christmas music and focus on other music instead. We did include just a handful of Christmas pieces in the repertoire, because handbells and Christmas go together so well. After all, Christmas is only a few weeks away!
Here’s the concert program:
Handbells, organ and flute together!
We’re grateful to Linda Strouf and Mary Van Voorst for sharing their musical talents with us at this concert. We’d made plans to play our duet arrangement of Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee with organ accompaniment. That created a small challenge, because the organ at Third Reformed is located at the rear of the sanctuary, upstairs in the balcony. Before the concert, we set up duplicate bells in the balcony. When the time came, Linda played a J.S. Bach piece to give us time to get from the front of the church, up the stairs and onto the balcony, ready to play Joyful, Joyful. The plan worked perfectly! Linda played another organ piece while we made our way back down the stairs, and to the front of the church again.
A highlight of the concert, for us, was the opportunity to play our arrangement of Ding Dong, Merrily on High, complete with piano and flute accompaniment. This was only the third time the piece has been performed, and the flute accompaniment part is so new that we haven’t published it yet! Mary Van Voorst joined us to play the flute, and Linda made her way down from the balcony to play the piano part. We also enjoyed playing a couple of recent additions to our repertoire – Go, Tell It on the Mountain and Lucerna Laudoniae. Lucerna is one of our early arrangements that we brought back after not having played it for several years!
Roger Rietberg was at the concert!
We were surprised and pleased to be introduced to Roger Rietberg, who attended the concert with his son. Afterwards, we enjoyed a reception, where we had the opportunity to chat with members of the audience. It’s always fun to talk about our bells and music! Al and Jane Osman gave us flowers (look out for Osman’s Flowers and Firs at the Downtown Holland Farmers’ Market). These were perfect for a festive-looking photo with our bells!
Thank you!
Our thanks go to everyone who helped to make this concert possible – from planning the event, all the way to staying to clean up after the reception.
The 21st Annual Rietberg Concert will feature handbells for the very first time ever! Over the years, these concerts have featured many accomplished organists, and we’re excited to bring our handbell music to this year’s event. We’ll be playing a variety of 8-bell duets in this informal Sunday afternoon concert. There will be well-known hymn arrangements, and some more-unusual traditional pieces from different countries. We might even squeeze in a couple of Christmas carols! Organist Linda Strouf and flutist Mary Van Voorst will also make an appearance. We’d love to see you there too!
Here’s all the information you need:
The 21st Annual Rietberg Concert in Holland, Michigan
Can’t make it to the Rietberg Concert?
If you can’t make it to the Rietberg Concert, but you’d like to book a handbell performance at your own event, please get in touch with us. We can provide handbell music for private or church concerts, as well as for wedding ceremonies and Christmas events. We can also play our duets for worship services. We’re based in Holland, Michigan, but happy to travel.
If you’d like to see and listen to some of our handbell duets in your own home, you might enjoy our YouTube channel!
The 2018 Rietberg Concert will feature handbells for the very first time! We’ll be the guest musicians for the 21st annual performance, which will take place here in Holland.
This informal Sunday afternoon program will feature some of our favorite hymns and traditional melodies, all played using just eight bells. We’ll talk about the history of our instrument and some of the techniques we use. We’ll also give you some information about our music, and share how handbells brought us together across thousands of miles. Did you know that we first met online on a website for handbell musicians? Handbells brought us together, when we were living thousands of miles apart!
Organist Linda Strouf will join us for a couple of pieces. There will be a reception afterwards. We’ll be happy to talk more, and answer any questions you might have. Ask us about handbells, music in general, or what brought us from California and England, all the way to Holland!
The 2018 Rietberg Concert will take place at Third Reformed Church, 111 W 13th St, Holland, MI 49423 on Sunday, November 4th, 2018 at 3:00pm. The concert is a tribute to the 45 years of service of Roger and Evelyn Rietberg to the music program of Third Reformed Church.
Thanks to everyone who came to the Zeeland Community Band concert at Pumpkinfest!
We’ve been living here in Michigan for more than two years now, so we’re used to the idea that the weather can be unpredictable. It’s not unlike English weather. The rain tends to appear at those most inconvenient times when you have something fun and outdoorsy planned. That was the case this weekend at the annual Zeeland PumpkinFest! The Zeeland Community Band’s annual PumpkinFest concert was meant to be at Vande Luyster Park. Instead, we all moved to an indoor location at the Howard Miller Library. Congratulations if you managed to find us!
We were concerned that our audience might not get the message about the change of location. We pictured a crowd of disappointed people sitting forlornly in lawn chairs on sodden grass in front of the gazebo. However, we needn’t have worried. So many people arrived at the library that we had to fetch more chairs!
Zeeland Community Band director, Rose Wiersma, welcomes everyone to the concert
The PumpkinFest concert is an ideal opportunity for orange accessories, and band members did not disappoint!
This year’s concert repertoire
This year’s concert repertoire included a few spooky Halloween-style pieces, as well as some popular marches. There was even some movie music! We started with The Billboard March, followed by Into the Storm, a very appropriate piece for this time of year! Ghost Riders in the Sky followed. After that, we strung our bells into “bell trees” for Highlights from Harry Potter. This is an unusual technique for us, as we usually play all our pieces holding two bells in each hand.
Bell trees, where the bells are gently struck with mallets instead of being played in the usual way
Eagle Lake March was followed by Clowns, then we enjoyed another opportunity to play the well-known Danse Macabre. This one involves some quick bell-changes for us! We first played this piece a year ago in concert with the Coopersville Community Concert Band.
March of the Marionettes was next on the program, followed by The Pink Panther. Band director Rose took a few moments to read to the younger members of the audience!
The next piece was the Sandpaper Ballet, which wouldn’t be complete without sand blocks and audience participation!
Handing out sand blocks to the audience!
The next piece was the fun Comedians Galop. The concert concluded with On the Mall, with another opportunity for the audience to participate with singing and whistling. Audience members rose to their feet with generous applause, which the band members appreciated. Finally, the band played Valley Forge as an encore. It takes a lot of effort to put together a concert, and it was reassuring to know that the rain hadn’t dampened anyone’s enthusiasm!
Thanks to everyone who came to this year’s PumpkinFest concert!
Thanks to the Zeeland Community Band for including us!
We thoroughly enjoyed being part of this year’s PumpkinFest concert, and we’re thankful to the Zeeland Community Band for continuing to welcome us as performers with their ensemble. This is a community band in every sense of the word; new members (with at least high school proficiency on their chosen instrument) are always welcome. Leave a comment below if you’d like more information about that, and we’ll connect you with the right people. The band continues to perform in local venues, with music that’s popular with people of all ages. It’s truly a privilege to work with these talented and enthusiastic musicians.
To find out more about the Zeeland Community Band, check out their website. We’ll be performing in concert with the band again at their Christmas Concert on Monday, December 10th, at the Cityside Middle School Auditorium, and we’d love to see you there!
If you were at these festivals, and you looked at sample copies of our 8-bell music, you might remember that our music binders looked like this:
Where to find these music binder covers
We’ve had several enquiries, so we decided to make these binder inserts available on our music site. If they’d be useful to you, you can download them free of charge from Choraegus.
We have Christmas/holiday and the-rest-of-the-year versions, for both our standard arrangements, and the surprisingly-easy versions too. Just pick the ones you need and download them, ready for printing.
Also in the Freebies section of our music site, you’ll find free scores to download for your handbell group. This free handbell music can be a great way to try out our 8-bell music without having to spend any money.
Let us know if you have more ideas!
If you have any other ideas for what you’d like to see available on Choraegus, please let us know. We’re always open to new ideas and suggestions!
We’re settling back into normal life after our trip to Petoskey for the 2018 Bay View Week of Handbells. We’ve unpacked our cases, and done the laundry. The only task that remains is to file away the music.
Our history with the Week of Handbells
The Bay View Week of Handbells has become an annual tradition for us. We attended for the first time in August 2010, when we were still in our long-distance relationship. Carla flew to Chicago from England, Larry flew in from California, and we met in person for the very first time before taking the short flight to Traverse City together. Our first Week of Handbells was an emotional and fun event. We met so many new friends there! Most importantly, we had the opportunity to find out how it felt to spend time together in the same place. It was a luxury we’d never had until then, having only previously communicated in an endless string of Facebook messages!
One of the first photos taken of us together! On our way to Mackinac Island, August 2010
When our first trip to Bay View was over, we were apart again for a whole year. We met again at the 2011 Week of Handbells, and celebrated our engagement at the Monday evening reception.
The following year was a busy one for us, as we dealt with the challenges of the U.S. fiancée visa process. Finally, we were able to close the distance in August 2012. We timed everything to coincide with that year’s Week of Handbells. Larry flew to England, then we flew back together from London to Chicago. Next, we traveled to Traverse City for the week of rehearsals and the Thursday evening concert. After the event was over, we were able to take a flight to California and begin our life together.
Since then, we’ve been fortunate to be able to continue to attend the Week of Handbells every year. Our journey there became even easier after we moved from California to Holland, Michigan in the summer of 2016. These days, instead of having to book flights, we can simply get in the car and drive for a few hours, and we’re there!
What’s special about the Bay View Week of Handbells?
Firstly (and because this ties in with the mission statement of the event – see footnote), the standard of ringing is very high. The whole idea is that musicians will prepare the music thoroughly in the months before the event. It means taking time to learn the notes, work out strategies and solutions for tricky passages, and practise dynamics. When the event arrives, we can use the time to work on expression and the finer points of performing to a high professional standard. That relies on every ringer taking personal responsibility before the event. It’s such a wonderful feeling to attend an event knowing that you can rely on your neighbors to know the music thoroughly before the first rehearsal even begins.
Treble sectional rehearsal at this year’s Bay View Week of Handbells
The Bay View family
For us, one of the real highlights of the Week of Handbells is that it’s about so much more than just the music. The music is hugely important, of course, but so is the incredible feeling of friendship and fellowship that comes from returning to a place you love, and sharing that space with so many familiar people who have started to feel like family to us. The changes to the sign-up process for this year’s event meant that there were more first-time participants than usual. We admit to feeling heavy-hearted that some of our friends weren’t able to attend this year. There are some people who, for us, seem to belong at Bay View, and we felt their absence during the week. Having said that, we were also new to the event not so many years ago, and it’s important to welcome new participants and to hope that they, too, will soon feel part of the Bay View family. One of the great new developments this year was the introduction of a tuition scholarship for a young adult ringer.
New at Bay View – position captains
Another change this year was the introduction of “Position Captains” – a group of Bay View alumni responsible for going through the music and suggesting solutions and strategies for difficult passages, communicating with ringers, and responding to questions, in an effort to make this year’s practice go more smoothly for everyone. Carla had the opportunity to coordinate the Position 7 team this year. Despite the initial stress of having to start working on the music eight months before the event, it seemed to be a real advantage to correspond with a team of ringers and coordinate bell-sharing and ideas for those “possibly-impossible” measures in the weeks and months before we all arrived in Petoskey. The responsibility for practice still lies with each ringer as an individual, of course. However, this year it felt good to be part of a supportive team, working together to reach a shared goal.
Position 7! Plus a few extras, because Carla is a bell-hog, of course.
Skilled conducting makes a difference
Another thing that makes the Week of Handbells so special is the opportunity to perform under the baton of a really inspiring director. The event was established in 1978 by Don Allured, who passed the baton to Carl Wiltse in 2002. Fred Gramann took over as director in 2018, and did not disappoint. With his attention to detail and skilled conducting, it’s not surprising that he is in demand as a handbell director for events all over the world.
With Fred Gramann at the 2016 Week of Handbells
Exciting and challenging repertoire
The repertoire for the Bay View Week of Handbells is always challenging and rewarding. Favorites from this year’s concert program included Catherine McMichael’s Celtic Queen, Fred Gramann’s Prelude on Herzliebster Jesu and Michael Joy’s Proclamation (so much fun for the AB5 ringers!) Larry once again had the honor of being part of the Deep Pit team for this year’s event. He played the aluminum bells that are so exciting to watch during the Thursday evening concert.
The Deep Pit – bass bells at Bay View!
The concert on Thursday evening was an exciting event, where we all reaped the rewards of all the hard work we’d put in during the rehearsals, and in the weeks and months leading up to the event. With just the right mixture of “celebration” (including Doug Benton’s composition Alluredia, the Donald E. Allured Composition Award piece) and “dance” (including Charles Peery’s audience-pleasing arrangement of Love Will Keep Us Together) the audience and musicians really enjoyed the evening.
Together outside the John M Hall Auditorium – before the concert
Bay View is such a beautiful location
The Week of Handbells takes place in a beautiful part of Michigan. Bay View is a National Historic Landmark community, founded in 1875 and owned by the United Methodist Church. There are more than thirty public buildings on the campus, two inns and more than 400 cottages. This year, for the first time, we stayed in one of the cottages, and it was so convenient to be able to walk to and from rehearsals each day. Our cottage was just a short walk from the lake. On our first evening there, we went to the beach to watch the sunset together. What could be more beautiful than this?
Of course, anyone who knows us well… will also know that we take every possible opportunity to look for Petoskey stones while we’re at Bay View. The Petoskey stone is the official Michigan State Stone. It’s a fossilised coral – Hexagonaria percarinata – that lived in the warm Michigan waters around 350 million years ago. We found some on the beach while we were watching the sunset, and a few more after the Farewell Breakfast on Friday morning.
Cladopora (left) and Petoskey stones. Carla waded into the lake to get these!
We hope to be back next year!
We’re always sorry to have to leave Bay View when the Week of Handbells is over. Now that we live in Michigan, though, the goodbyes are less painful. When home is just a few hours’ drive away, a temporary farewell is much less traumatic. We hope to be back at next year’s event!
Note: The Bay View Week of Handbells Mission Statement (as stated on the Week of Handbells website) is: “The Bay View Week of Handbells exists to give advanced ringers an opportunity to prepare a concert to be performed at a high professional level.”
Will you be at our handbell concert in Harbor Springs? We’ll be presenting a concert of 8-bell duets on Sunday, August 12th, at First Presbyterian Church. Here’s the concert program! As you can see, our concert will include a mixture of well-loved hymns, and beautiful traditional pieces from several different countries. We’ll also be joined by the Kirk Ringers of First Presbyterian Church for several pieces.
We’re looking forward to this concert, in such a beautiful part of Michigan. Admission to the concert is free, with an opportunity for a free-will offering. We hope to see you there!
Would you like to host a handbell duet concert?
If you can’t attend our handbell concert in Harbor Springs, you might enjoy some of our handbell duet videos on our YouTube channel.
If a live performance is more your style, and you’re considering hosting a handbell duet concert at your church, please get in touch with us. As a handbell duo, we take up less space than a traditional handbell choir, and our transportation costs are lower. We can often combine a concert with playing our duets for a morning worship service too! We’re based in Holland, Michigan, but we’re happy to travel.
