January 17, 2022

Newness – Spring Handbell Music

Newness is an original composition for 3 or 5 octaves of handbells. Spring is approaching (although it’s going to take a while, here in Michigan), so we thought the time was right to make a demonstration video of the 5-octave version. If you’re looking for spring handbell music that’s suitable for a secular performance or a worship service, this piece could be an option, and it shouldn’t take too long to learn.

More information about Newness

Newness is for 3 or 5 octaves of handbells, with optional handchimes. If all the notes are played on bells, it’s a Level 2 piece. Adding the handchimes adds an extra challenge for several ringers. We found it helpful to be able to play the chimes as 4-in-hand pairs with the bells. When we recorded this piece on 3 octaves, we played the chimes separately, again as 4-in-hand pairs – so that could be an option too, if you have extra ringers. If in doubt, just play the whole thing on bells only!

There’s a lot more spring handbell music available from Choraegus, including titles for Lent and Easter – so take a look, and we hope you’ll find something to interest you!

How to purchase the sheet music

Sheet music for Newness is available to purchase, download and print from Choraegus. You can either purchase an individual copy (useful for massed ringing events, or for preview), or purchase the full choir license. Purchase of the full choir license gives you our no-fuss permission to print up to 15 copies for your group.

Your purchase also gives permission for you to perform, broadcast and live-stream this piece as part of a concert or worship service without the need for any additional license or fee, although we ask you to credit the arranger (Larry Sue) and publisher (Choraegus) in any printed media such as concert programs, and online (in video descriptions). See our licensing agreement for full details. We appreciate your help in spreading the word about Choraegus handbell music. If you record a video of your group playing any of our pieces, we’d love to see it. You’re welcome to share it with us on our Facebook page!

Choraegus handbell music is designed to come to you as a PDF file, which you’ll need to download. 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, we recommend 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. If someone has asked us a question even once, it will be there, along with the answer. Please contact us if you don’t find the information you need, and we’ll be happy to help.

January 14, 2022

Come Down, O Love Divine – Handbell Music for Pentecost

“Come down, O Love divine,
seek thou this soul of mine,
and visit it with thine own ardor glowing;
O Comforter, draw near,
within my heart appear,
and kindle it, thy holy flame bestowing.”

We’re happy to bring you this new recording of Larry’s arrangement of the hymn Come Down, O Love Divine. The tune is DOWN AMPNEY, written by Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1906. This hymn is ideal for Pentecost worship.

More information about this arrangement

Come Down, O Love Divine is for 3 or 5 octaves of handbells, with optional handchimes. It’s a Level 3- arrangement. Sheet music is available to download from Choraegus – available as an individual score, or as a full-choir license.

Buying Choraegus handbell music

When you purchase handbell music from Choraegus, 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 (for the full-choir copy) entitles you to print up to 15 copies for your group. 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 worship services, 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.

Come Down O Love Divine handbell music for Pentecost

January 9, 2022

Gaudete! Handbell Music for Christmas

In the handbell world, we know the importance of preparing early. We started the new year by preparing super-early for Christmas 2022 – with a new recording of the carol Gaudete! Okay, we we’ll admit it; we were actually late with this one. The original plan had been for us to record it before Christmas. However, December turned out busier than we expected it to be, and we had to postpone our recording until we’d finished our holiday handbell performances!

Gaudete! dates back at least as far as the 16th century, and this arrangement is fun to play. It sounds tricky, and it probably is, but once you’ve got the hang of the rhythms and mixed meter, it flows along quite nicely. It has handchimes, an opportunity for singing bell, and we added a lively cajón part too!

How to buy Gaudete! Handbell music from Choraegus

Gaudete! is a Level 4+ arrangement, and sheet music is available to purchase, download and print from Choraegus. You can either purchase an individual copy (useful for massed ringing events, or for preview), or purchase the full choir license. Purchase of the full choir license gives you our no-fuss permission to print up to 15 copies for your group.

Your purchase also gives permission for you to perform, broadcast and live-stream this piece as part of a concert or worship service without the need for any additional license or fee, although we ask you to credit the arranger (Larry Sue) and publisher (Choraegus) in any printed media such as concert programs, and online (in video descriptions) where possible. See our licensing agreement for full details. We appreciate your help in spreading the word about Choraegus handbell music. If you record a video of your group playing any of our pieces, we’d love to see it. You’re welcome to share it with us on our Facebook page!

Choraegus handbell music is designed to come to you as a PDF file, which you’ll need to download. You’ll be responsible for printing your own music, and you won’t receive anything in the mail.

Any questions?

December 29, 2021

Holiday Handbell Performances – a Busy December

December brought us a busy month of holiday handbell performances. After last year’s quiet holiday season, we launched back into live performances with a vengeance in the last few weeks of 2021.

Back to the Kerstmarkt-Holland

Our first seasonal performance was at this year’s Kerstmarkt in downtown Holland. This was our fifth time performing at this European-style Christmas market, and we always enjoy it. It was surprisingly cold this year, and we were thankful for the loan of a heater (thanks, Shady Side Farm!). Having said that, this event is always a highlight of our holiday season, whatever the weather. The market is a little slice of Europe here in West Michigan, and there are interesting things to buy, all made locally, and twinkling lights to add a festive atmosphere.

Here’s a video of us at the Kerstmarkt!

Christmas Handbell Program for Seniors

We performed handbell duets at several senior communities this year. Our program of holiday handbell music generally lasts around 40-45 minutes. We played a selection of Christmas carols, some familiar and some less well-known, and on several occasions we had time for a question-and-answer session with the audience. It’s always fun to talk about the history of our instruments and the techniques used in playing them. We also get asked a lot of questions about how we met, and how we ended up in Michigan!

The other thing we enjoy doing, time permitting, is demonstrating an 8-bell piece on handchimes. They have a very pure tone, and lend themselves well to Christmas carols. Our favourite demonstration piece this year was In the Bleak Midwinter, which worked well on chimes, and proved to be popular with our audiences.

We were also able to demonstrate our set of antique Taylor bells from England, at the Ringing in the Holidays event at Hudsonville Library. Playing these bells is more challenging for us, because the leather handles are more floppy than the handles on the bells we usually use, so we tend to use them to demonstrate some of our slower Christmas pieces – like Away in a Manger (Cradle Song), or the Dutch carol Hoe Leit dit Kindeke. It’s interesting to be able to show before-and-after photos of these handbells, which we bought from eBay and sent over to Ireland for restoration. Here’s how they look now:

Holiday handbell performances in (not so) far-off places

This year, we drove to Kalamazoo for a couple of our holiday bookings. We were thankful that the weather stayed mild all through December, so driving around wasn’t a problem at all. We enjoyed playing at a corporate holiday party, where we played an hour of “background music”, then gave a 30-minute duet performance. As it was a party, we handed out some handchimes to willing volunteers, and they had a go at playing Jingle Bells. Oh, what fun!

We went back to Burcham Hills, in East Lansing, where we’d played Christmas music outdoors at their socially-distant Festival of Lights last year. This year we were happy to be indoors, and we gave a two-hour performance during their Ho-Ho-Holiday Open House event.

Holiday handbell performances - Burcham Hills

Holiday handbell performances - senior community

Performing with the Zeeland Community Band

We were delighted to be able to perform in concert with our friends at the Zeeland Community Band again. After a two-year break, it was exciting to see how much this talented ensemble has grown, both in number and in skill. It was a wonderful concert, with a wide variety of Christmas and holiday tunes, and an appreciative audience. It’s been noticeable to us how people have rejoiced at having the opportunity to hear (and see) live music performances again.

Zeeland Community Band Christmas concert 2021

Christmas Eve worship services

We concluded our busy month of holiday handbell performances with four Christmas Eve services. We played in the three services at Ridge Point Community Church, where we’d last played in December 2017. It was good to be back! We played a pre-service handbell prelude, and joined their talented band for Lincoln Brewster’s Miraculum in each of the services. Didn’t our handbells look pretty under those lights?

We finished our Christmas performance season with the 11:00pm service at Third Reformed Church, here in Holland. We played a 15-minute prelude, and added handbell parts to several of the hymns and the Silent Night organ postlude. After our busy day, and a hectic month of holiday handbell performances, the late service was exactly what we needed. As Christmas Eve turned into Christmas Day, we went home for some sleep!

Thank you so much for a wonderful 2021 holiday season. If you booked us for a handbell duet performance, we’re grateful to you. If you came to one of our public events and stopped to listen, or if you offered encouragement or kind comments about our music, please be assured that your words meant a lot to us. To everyone who bought handbell music from Choraegus, or ordered a copy of The Bass Ringer’s Notebook – thank you. And if you connected with us on our Facebook page or YouTube channel, or shared our music videos on social media, we’re grateful to you too. We look forward to sharing lots more handbell music with you in 2022!

December 27, 2021

The Kalamazoo Ringers Christmas Concert is on YouTube!

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:

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

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

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.

‘Twas in the Moon of Wintertime

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!

It Came Upon the Midnight Clear

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!

Kalamazoo Ringers Christmas concert program 2021

December 23, 2021

Free Handbell Music – I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

“I heard the bells on Christmas Day,
Their old familiar carols play”

Thank you to everyone who’s bought and downloaded handbell music from Choraegus this year. We appreciate you so much! Now it’s our turn to give something to you – with free handbell music! Did you catch our giveaway of Silent Night (12-bell) on Facebook yesterday? If you missed it, you can still get today’s free gift. I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day is arranged for 8 handbells and piano accompaniment – and it can be yours, free of charge, for one day only! You can also get the accompaniment track mp3, to help with rehearsing or for those times when you don’t have a pianist available.

To get your free sheet music, add I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day (and the accompaniment track if you need it) to your cart on the Choraegus site, and click on the yellow “Check out with PayPal” button (don’t worry; PayPal won’t ask you to make any payment). Enter your details, and click “Confirm Order” (there’s no need to click on the PayPal button a second time). You’ll receive a confirmation screen, with a link to download your music. We recommend saving it to your computer, so that you’ll have it ready for next year! If anything goes wrong, please let us know, and we’ll find another way to get your music to you.

More information (the small print)

As always, we recommend that you read the licensing agreement before buying music from us (or claiming your free music), especially if this is your first time downloading music from Choraegus. You won’t receive anything in the mail, and will be responsible for printing your own music.

Any questions?

If you have any questions about our music, please start by reading our Frequently-Asked Questions. If you don’t find the answers you need, please contact us, and we’ll do what we can to help!

We wish you a very happy holiday season, and a healthy and music-filled year ahead!

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day handbells

December 18, 2021

The 2021 Kalamazoo Ringers Christmas Concert

The 2021 Kalamazoo Ringers Christmas Concert is tomorrow!

We’re excited about this concert! On a Winter’s Night will be streamed on the Kalamazoo Ringers’ Facebook page at 4pm EST. We were all disappointed not to be able to rehearse and prepare our usual Christmas concert at Grace Harbor. Instead, we cautiously decided to gather only in small groups for this Christmas season – and it turned out to be a lot of fun! The concert is an interesting mixture of handbell solos, duets and small ensembles – with a lot of Choraegus music!

We’re particularly excited to share our 5-octave arrangement of Of the Father’s Love Begotten. This is a new piece that we haven’t published yet. It will be available to download from Choraegus in May next year. There’s also an exciting arrangement of Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, where we’re joined by Martha and Gary Matthews on flute and piano. There’s a nice mixture of small ensemble pieces, from Jason Krug’s beautiful Coventry, played on bell tree, to the pure fun of Valerie Stephenson’s Caroler’s Hoedown… and if you stay tuned until the end, we’ll even show you some outtakes!

The Kalamazoo Ringers Christmas Concert will be live on the Kalamazoo Ringers Facebook page at 4:00pm on Sunday, December 19. The video will be available to watch on Facebook and YouTube afterwards.

We have high hopes of presenting an in-person concert next spring!

November 29, 2021

Jesus Paid it All – for 8 Handbells

Jesus Paid it All was written in 1855 by Elvina M. Hall, with music by John T. Grape. The tune ALL TO CHRIST is also used for the hymns Fullness in Christ, I Hear the Saviour Say, and All to Christ I Owe.

More information about this arrangement

Our 8-bell arrangement of Jesus Paid it All is suitable for 2-4 ringers. We demonstrate it as a 4-in-hand duet, but there’s no requirement to use 4-in-hand. There’s no bell-sharing, and no accidentals to pick up mid-piece, so if you have a small ensemble, this piece can be played with no need for tables or foam pads. Perfect for social distancing!

How to purchase the sheet music

Sheet music for Jesus Paid it All is available to purchase, download and print from Choraegus. Purchase of this arrangement gives you permission to print up to four copies for your handbell group – so don’t pay for more copies than you need! Your 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. We appreciate your help in spreading the word about Choraegus handbell music. If you record a video of your group playing any of our pieces, we’d love to see it. You’re welcome to share it with us on our Facebook page!

Choraegus handbell music is designed to come to you as a PDF file, which you’ll need to download. You’ll be responsible for printing your own music, and you won’t receive anything in the mail.

Any questions?

November 10, 2021

Need a Handbell Performance for Christmas? Book Soon!

If you need a handbell performance for Christmas 2021, it might be a good idea to book soon! After last year’s very quiet holiday season, it’s encouraging to see Christmas events and worship services being planned. Our calendar is filling up fast!

Our holiday performance season will start on November 26, at the Kerstmarkt in Downtown Holland. We always look forward to this festive outdoor event, where we’ll be braving the chilly weather to play Christmas carols outdoors. It’s a great way to start the holiday season, and a wonderful place to shop for locally-made gifts, crafts and food.

Handbell performance for Christmas - Kerstmarkt

Handbells are perfect for the holidays!

We’ll be back at the Kerstmarkt on December 10th. This year we’re also looking forward to performing with the Zeeland Community Band at their Christmas concert, as well as giving another handbell duet program at Hudsonville Library, and some private events throughout December. We’ll share more details about our public performances soon.

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 community events, hotel lobbies, department stores, airports, shopping boutiques, social groups and private house parties alike.

Thinking of booking a handbell performance for Christmas?

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, or where social distancing is still being observed. We still have a few dates available for 2021 (including some Sundays during Advent), so if you need handbells for your Christmas event or worship service, you’re welcome to get in touch with us. If we can fit your event into our schedule, we will.

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!

Handbell performance for Christmas - Larry and Carla

November 7, 2021

The Lord Bless You and Keep You – Benediction – for 16 Handbells

“The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord lift His countenance upon you,
and give you peace;
the Lord make his face to shine upon you,
and be gracious unto you.
Amen.”

Over the weekend, we closed up our summer cottage at Bay View, northern Michigan, and drove home to Holland. It’s a bittersweet time for us; the weather’s been getting colder, and there’s a limit to how long it’s comfortable to stay in a mostly-uninsulated Victorian cottage. But on the other hand, the autumn colours are still beautiful, and our summer cottage has been a peaceful retreat for us in recent months. We’ve spent a lot of time there this year, and we really didn’t want to leave!

Bay View is a beautiful place in every season. Here’s our video showing some of the views we’ve enjoyed this year. There are two 16-bell arrangements used in the video – God Be with You Till We Meet Again, and our new arrangement of The Lord Bless You and Keep You, which starts 1:28 into the video.

More information about The Lord Bless You and Keep You

This is the BENEDICTION hymn tune, written by Peter C. Lutkin. We sing this at the end of our annual concert at the Bay View Week of Handbells – and our arrangement is suitable as an accompaniment to choral singing. The arrangement is suitable for 4-8 ringers, and contains no bell changes. If your handbell ensemble is playing from music stands, or observing social distancing, this could work!

If you’d like to play either this arrangement, or God Be With You Till We Meet Again, the sheet music is available to purchase, download and print from Choraegus.

More about Choraegus handbell music

Purchasing either of these arrangements gives you permission to print and maintain up to 8 copies for your handbell group. Purchase also gives permission for performance, broadcasting, live-streaming and online video-sharing for non-commercial purposes such as worship services. See our licensing agreement for full details. Please be sure to mention the title and arranger of the piece on video-sharing sites, social media and any printed materials.

Please note that our sheet 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, 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. You’ll find just about every question anyone has ever asked us, along with answers! However, if you don’t find the information you need, please contact us and we’ll be happy to help!