After a successful application process, we’re excited to announce that we’ve been invited to perform our handbell duets as part of the 2018 Street Performer Series in Downtown Holland!
Larry and Carla at the 2017 Downtown Holland Street Performer Series
The Street Performer Series is an annual event here in Holland, Michigan, taking place on Thursday evenings throughout the summer. Downtown Holland comes alive with the sights and sounds of musicians, magicians, circus acts, dancers, face painters and other talented performers. It’s a fun community event, and a great way to spend a summer evening with friends and family.
The 2018 Downtown Holland Street Performer Series starts on Thursday, June 14, and runs for twelve consecutive Thursdays until the end of August, from 6:30 to 8:30pm.
We’ll be performing on the following dates:
July 5, outside Tin Ceiling at 10 E 8th St, Holland;
July 19, outside Resthaven Warm Friend at 5 E 8th St, Holland;
August 9, outside R.I.T. Music at 74 E 8th St, Holland.
Here’s a look at one of our performances from the 2017 series:
Our thanks go to Gentex Corporation for sponsoring this event. We also thank the Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affairs for their support through the Holland Area Arts Council. We’re looking forward to being part of the Street Performers Series this summer!
“Farewell to old England for ever, Farewell to my rum coes as well, Farewell to the well-known Old Bailey Where I used for to cut such a swell.
Botany Bay first became popular in theatre shows of the late 1800s, in London, England and Melbourne, Australia. However, its roots may be from an even earlier time! The song describes the period in the late 18th and 19th centuries, when many British convicts were deported to penal colonies in Australia. We have another 8-bell piece about this period of history – Moreton Bay.
How to get the sheet music for Botany Bay
If you’d like to play our arrangement of Botany Bay, the sheet music is available for purchase and download from Choraegus.
Please remember that Choraegus handbell music is designed to be downloaded. You’ll be responsible for printing the music at home, and you won’t receive anything in the mail. If you haven’t purchased music from Choraegus before, we recommend our step-by-step guide!
Purchasing this 8-bell piece entitles you to pay once, and print up to 4 copies for your group. See our licensing agreement for full details. Please don’t pay for more copies than you need!
Any questions?
If you have any questions about buying or playing Choraegus handbell music, we have some Frequently-Asked Questions that might help. If you don’t find the answers you need, please contact us!
We’ve read that Chinese Guardian Lions have mystical powers of protection. For many years, they have traditionally stood in front of Imperial palaces, government offices, temples and the homes of high-ranking members of society. You’ll find a pair of them in the Terrace Room at Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, Michigan. We were there recently, for the Handbell Musicians of America Area 5 spring handbell conference.
In Western society, people often refer to these lions as “Foo Dogs”. We’re not sure that they’ve mastered the techniques needed to play bass handbells. They lack a certain flexibility, it’s true. But who cares about that, when they’re so golden, so mystical, and so protective and wise?
Totally scientific research
From our detailed research at Grand Hotel, we’re confident that this one would definitely recommend The Bass Ringer’s Notebook. It’s the ultimate guide to playing bass handbells. Have you bought your copy yet?
Any questions?
If you need more than just a recommendation from some Chinese foo dogs, Larry will be happy to give you more information. If you have questions about The Bass Ringer’s Notebook, please contact us and we’ll be happy to help!
It was an honor for us to be invited to be guest artists at the Handbell Musicians of America Area 5 Spring Festival on Mackinac Island. We were excited to go back to the island! We’d only visited a couple of times before – in 2010 and 2013 – and hadn’t stayed for more than a few hours.
No cars on Mackinac Island!
One of the unusual things about Mackinac Island is you can’t drive your car there! Motorised vehicles have been banned since 1898. For this reason, our journey there began by parking our car in Mackinac City and taking the ferry across to the island.
Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island – seen from the ferry!
Being West Michigan’s smallest handbell choir has its advantages. We didn’t need to transport tables, foam pads and multiple cases of bells over to the island. We had just one handcart loaded with our equipment, and we pushed it all the way from the ferry dock, up the hill to Grand Hotel.
On our way to Grand Hotel for the Handbell Musicians of America Area 5 Festival!
We arrived at Grand Hotel on Thursday morning and the staff instantly made us welcome. The hotel hadn’t officially opened for the 2018 season yet. We were fortunate to be able to stay there and enjoy the very special and unique atmosphere. We were also able to observe some of the preparations as the hotel staff prepared for the first guests of the season to arrive. The hotel has 393 guest rooms, and each one is decorated in its own individual style. If you like flowers (particularly geraniums), you’d love Grand Hotel!
Our room at Grand Hotel!
A handchime workshop at the school
Thursday afternoon’s adventure involved some handbell education! We went to Mackinac Island Public School, where a group of us presented a program of music on handbells, flute and keyboard. The event was coordinated by Martha Matthews, with Gary Matthews playing keyboard. Members of the Area 5 Board were also there, to supervise the students with the sets of chimes.
The students were each given a color-coded handchime to play. They were able to play chords to accompany “Amazing Grace” and “Jingle Bells”, with the aid of a chart showing coloured dots. It was wonderful to see the enthusiasm of the students as they played. For most of them, it was their first opportunity to play these instruments. They did very well, learning how to use the correct techniques for playing the chimes and stopping the sound afterwards.
We demonstrated several of our handbell duets for the students. Martha and Gary joined us to perform Silver and Bronze(for handbells and flute) and Ding Dong, Merrily on High(for handbells and piano, with additional soon-to-be-published flute part).
Performing for the students at Mackinac Island Public School
The festival begins!
Friday marked the start of the festival, and we enjoyed a wonderful evening meal at the hotel before performing the opening concert in the beautiful theatre there.
Here’s the list of pieces we played at the opening concert!
Performing a concert for an audience of “handbell people” can be an intimidating experience. There’s definitely some additional pressure involved when performing in front of people who know about handbell stuff! However, handbell people are, in general, a friendly and supportive group. We felt much more relaxed than we’d expected to during our concert. Afterwards, we were pleased to receive some really nice comments from audience members.
Teaching about 8-bell music
On Saturday morning, we had the opportunity to teach a class on 8-bell music. We were pleasantly surprised by how many people arrived for the class! We answered questions about our music, specific techniques involved in playing it, and how to buy our sheet music online. Participants enjoyed played some simple pieces such as Aura Lee, Kingsfold and The Water is Wide. Finally, they tried the more challenging I Saw Three Ships.
Our eight-bell music workshop at Grand Hotel. Did we mention the weekend involved lots of coffee?
Other classes at the festival
During the festival, participants had the chance to attend other interesting classes, such as Artistry and the Big Box of Crayons: Techniques for a Variety of Tone Color and Handbells: a Full-Body Sport, both led by Martha Matthews, Maori Sticks, led by Susan Oxley, Music Theory, led by Ann Wood, and Finale and Handbells, led by Judy Phillips. There was also FredChat – an opportunity to chat with guest conductor Fred Gramann. We enjoyed a fascinating tour of Grand Hotel, where we were able to find out more about the building and its history. We even saw “behind the scenes” in the impressive kitchen!
The closing concert
Throughout the weekend, rehearsals continued in the Grand Hotel Theatre, as the festival participants prepared five pieces, ready to perform at the closing concert. The massed ringing pieces were Acclamation in G Minor (Karen Thompson), Within the Darkest Night (Derek Hakes), Hosanna (Jason Krug), What Child is This (Brenda Austin) and Jubilation (Fred Gramann). Fred Gramann conducted the festival choirs during rehearsals and at the closing concert.
Festival choirs rehearse under the baton of Fred Gramann
Fred Gramann at the closing concert at the 2018 Area 5 Spring Festival
The closing concert was well attended, with audience members coming from Grand Hotel and the island. Afterwards we spoke to several people who had never heard handbells before, and wanted to hear more!
Leaving the island
We’d have liked to stay longer on the island, but we were playing duets in a worship service in Harbor Springs the following morning. We’d made plans to travel back on the 6:00pm ferry to Mackinac City. Before we left, though, we had time to walk for a while and admire the scenery. We followed a trail of steps, thinking it would lead to a beach. Maybe it would have done, but before we reached the bottom of the steps, the ground was covered in a thick (and sloping) layer of ice. It seemed that winter was as reluctant to leave the island as we were!
Enjoying a walk on the island after the festival
Handbells and equipment leaving the island
It was fun to see the handbell equipment at the Shepler’s ferry dock. Transporting bells, chimes and foam pads is an interesting challenge on an island that doesn’t allow cars. All the equipment had to come to and from the hotel on horse-drawn transport, and it was transferred onto luggage carts to be loaded onto the ferry. Our own equipment was much more manageable, and we were able to wheel our handcart onto the ferry ourselves.
Handbells and foam pads ready to go onto the ferry. Our own equipment is in the foreground.
Thanks to all at HMA Area 5
We had an amazing time at the Area 5 Spring Festival on Mackinac Island. Grand Hotel is a dream location for any conference or vacation. It’s a fascinating place, full of history, with people who go out of their way to make guests feel cared about. Our thanks go to the Handbell Musicians of America Area 5 for inviting us to be guest artists at this event. We appreciated the opportunity to stay at Grand Hotel and share our music with other handbell musicians and students on the island. We hope to go back there again someday!
Our latest 8-bell arrangement is the beautiful hymn tune Morning Song. You might also know it as The King Shall Come When Morning Dawns.
We recently performed this piece for the first time at the opening concert for the Handbell Musicians of America Area 5 Spring Festival on Mackinac Island. We’ll be sharing photos and information about that event soon!
Here’s a video of us, recorded a few months ago, rehearsing this piece for the concert:
We’ve enjoyed working on this piece, and think it’s set to become one of our favorites for playing in church. If you’d like to play Morning Song, the sheet music is available for purchase and download from Choraegus.
More information about buying handbell music from Choraegus
Choraegus handbell music is designed to be downloaded and printed at home. That means you’ll be responsible for the printing, and you won’t receive anything in the mail. If you haven’t purchased our handbell music before, we recommend our step-by-step guide. We designed this to help make the process stress-free!
Purchasing this 8-bell piece gives you permission to print up to 4 copies for your group. You only need to pay once, so please don’t pay for more copies than you need! See our licensing agreement for more details.
Any questions?
If you have any questions about buying or playing our handbell music, please check our Frequently-Asked Questions first. If you don’t find the answers you need, please contact us and we’ll be happy to help!
On our way to Grand Hotel for the Handbell Musicians of America Area 5 Festival!
It’s been an interesting couple of weeks since this website unexpectedly disappeared into a black hole between two web hosting companies. We’ve been working hard (with a new web hosting company) to get the site up and running again. Fingers crossed, we think that today both websites are working again. May they stay that way!
We apologise to anyone who noticed the website’s absence and missed it while it was gone. We’re hoping there won’t be any “teething problems” with the site in the next few days. However, sometimes things happen – so do let us know if you get any surprise error messages or problems,. We’ll do our best to fix them quickly. Our Choraegus music site has had its fair share of problems too. Thankfully, that’s been up and running for a few days now, and is now working reliably again.
If you notice any problems with the website – anything missing or still not working properly, please contact us and let us know. Thank you for your patience, and for still being here!
“Thou hidden source of calm repose, thou all-sufficient love divine, my help and refuge from my foes, secure i am, if thou art mine: and lo, from sin, and grief, and shame, I hide me, Jesus, in thy name.”
This is an 18th century hymn by Charles Wesley. We hadn’t heard it until very recently! The tune is ST PETERSBURG. If you’re looking for an unusual hymn for your worship service, this could work well. It’s suitable for 3-6 ringers, and it’s available in two bell ranges – either C5-G6 or F5-C7.
Thanks to J.C for joining us for this recording during his recent visit to Michigan!
If you have any questions about buying or playing our music, you might like to check our Frequently-Asked Questions. If you don’t find the answers you’re looking for, please contact us and we’ll be happy to help!
It’s that time of year when people start contacting us to ask about handbell music for Lent, Holy Week, Good Friday, and Easter. Here are a few suggestions!
For full handbell choir, we have an original composition called “Meditation“, with the alternative title “Lenten Piece”. It’s a thoughtful and contemplative piece for 2-5 octaves of handbells. This demonstration video is by Tintabulations Handbell Ensemble.
This piece is available for purchase and download from Choraegus.
Are you looking for music for a smaller group?
If you don’t have a full handbell choir to work with, we have music arranged for twelve or eight bells too. For Lent, Holy Week or Good Friday, you could look at our twelve-bell arrangement of “There is a Fountain“, shown in the rehearsal video below. This and other twelve-bell hymns are available from Choraegus.
We have lots of eight-bell pieces suitable for this time of year. You can find all of our published eight-bell hymn arrangements in a repertoire list on this website. Sheet music is available to download and print from Choraegus. As an example, we have a straightforward but effective arrangement of “O Sacred Head“, suitable for 2-4 ringers.
There are many wonderful hymns for Easter. Our arrangement of “Come Christians, Join to Sing” has a version for eight bells with organ accompaniment by T. Paul Rosas, who played it with us at Los Altos United Methodist Church on Easter Sunday in 2016.
Thank you for considering our handbell music. If you need more information, check out some frequently-asked questions, and contact us if you don’t find what you’re looking for!
Today we took an exciting look back at one of our adventures from last summer. We had an opportunity to collaborate with internationally acclaimed Natalia Paruz. the Saw Lady! Natalia is New York City musician who specialises in playing the musical saw. She’s well-known for her NY subway performances!
We were all in New York City to participate in a concert given by Campanelli Handbell Ensemble, who were visiting the USA on tour from their home country of Estonia. Natalia was playing her musical saw for the solo part in Susan T. Nelson’s beautiful “Elegy”. We were playing the handbell duet part in a brand new composition “Mu Süda Ärka Üles“. After rehearsing with Campanelli and their director Inna Lai, we still had some time before the concert. We decided to read through our eight-bell arrangement of “Amazing Grace” together. This is the result:
Somewhere in our archives, we have recordings of a couple more pieces we played that afternoon, and we’ll share those soon! We very much enjoyed our musical collaboration with Natalia, and hope that someday we’ll have the opportunity to do it again!
With composer Susan T. Nelson and Natalia "Saw Lady" Paruz in NYC – July 2017
Here’s our latest 12-bell piece – an arrangement of the popular hymn HowGreat Thou Art. Thanks to J.C, who came to visit us for a few days last month and was happy to play through some new stuff with us.
This piece proved to be fun to play, and came together surprisingly quickly. As with all our 12-bell pieces, we’ve made it available in two versions – one for the traditional twelve-bell range C5-G6, and one for F5-C7, so you can pick the one that suits your group.
How to get the sheet music
If you’d like to play How Great Thou Art, it’s available for purchase and download from Choraegus.
When you buy music from Choraegus, you’ll receive instructions to download the file as a PDF. That means you’ll be responsible for printing the music at home, and you won’t receive anything in the mail. Please read our licensing agreement for all the details. If you haven’t bought music from us before, you might like to read our step-by-step guide. We designed this to help make the purchase process stress-free!
Your payment gives you permission to print out up to 6 copies of this arrangement for your group. Don’t pay for more copies than you need!
Any questions?
If you have any questions about buying and playing our music, please contact us, and we’ll be happy to help!
