In these Covid times, when we can’t get together with others to play full-choir handbell music, we’re having to improvise a bit. We decided to put together another 3-octave demonstration video – so here’s All Things Bright and Beautiful!
As with our other “fake-full-choir” recordings (All Praise to Thee, for Thou, O King Divine and Newness), this was more of a read-through than a pre-rehearsed performance. It felt like a bit of a crazy sight-read, because some of those notes go past very quickly, and there are some sneaky thumb-damps in there, as well as a fair amount of syncopation. It certainly kept us on our toes! We apologise for the minor inaccuracies, but it’s mostly there.
The video includes some images from the Tulip Time Festival here in Holland – an event that takes place annually at the start of May.
More about this arrangement
This is another arrangement that needs no bell-sharing between ringers. If your handbell choir is observing social distancing, and playing from spaced-apart tables, this piece could work well!
All Things Bright and Beautiful is arranged for 3 or 5 octaves of handbells, and it’s Level 3+. The sheet music is available to download from Choraegus.
More information about buying Choraegus handbell music
Choraegus handbell music is designed to be downloaded 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 entitles you to print out up to 15 copies for your group. Please read our licensing agreement for full information. If you’re new to buying music from Choraegus, we recommend our step-by-step guide!
Any questions?
If you have any questions about buying or playing our music, please look at the Frequently-Asked Questions first. If you don’t find the answers you need, please contact us and we’ll be happy to help.
We’re (cautiously) celebrating the end of Larry’s radiation treatment for prostate cancer recurrence! Over the last four weeks, Larry has had 20 sessions of radiation therapy at the University of Michigan Hospital. He drove us to Ann Arbor and back, from our home in Holland, every day, Monday to Friday. It came to a total of 6,552 miles!
The Michigan winter weather certainly made our daily road-trips an interesting experience. We knew it might be risky, driving 3 hours to the hospital, and 3 hours back, in January and February. There were mornings when visibility was very poor!
The amazing thing was how quickly the daily road-trips became routine for us. It didn’t take us long to get used to waking up in the morning, making lunch to take with us, and getting into the car. We looked out for sights along the way; little things to make us smile. Daily road-trips for cancer radiation could so easily become stressful, miserable experiences — so we appreciated the silly things – like graffiti at the rest stop near Ann Arbor…
… and “look, surely an illusionist!” – who, it turns out, is really a dentist:
Yup. Free advertising for Dr West of Battle Creek, who made us smile on our way home every day.
Most days, we stretched our legs with a short walk in Bandemer Park in Ann Arbor, after the radiation session was done. The weather in Ann Arbor was consistently brighter than the weather in Holland – and we were blessed with several days of blue skies, to walk by the river and enjoy the beauty of the snow and ice.
What happens next? Did the radiation treatment work?
Larry’s cancer treatment isn’t over yet. He’ll continue to have monthly injections until June, and more blood tests. There will be appointments with the oncologists in Wyoming (Michigan) and (online) in Ann Arbor. It will be some months before we find out if the combination of radiation and monthly injections have been successful.
If you’ve ever heard prostate cancer described as “the good cancer”, it’s not true. This cancer is sneaky, and has a tendency to return, over and over. We put our faith in God, and in the University of Michigan doctors, and hope for the best. We also hope that our insurance will eventually agree to help with the cost of the radiation therapy. They decided unexpectedly (on Day 13) to deny Larry the treatment, and that came as a shock to us. We’re fast discovering that the cost of having cancer treatment here in the USA can be overwhelming and scary.
Thank you to everyone who’s helped and encouraged us through this!
Our thanks go to the cancer team at the University of Michigan, for taking good care of Larry. We’re also thankful to everyone who’s encouraged us in this latest “adventure”. To the people who have sent us cards, and prayed for us – thank you. We’re grateful to the friends who offered us emergency accommodation if we’d needed it. It helped to know that staying overnight would have been possible if the weather had been too terrible. Thanks also to the Detroit Handbell Ensemble for the gift that paid for one of our road-trips, and to the choir at Third Reformed Church for the huge plant that unexpectedly took up residence in our house this week!
Thanks also to our Kalamazoo Ringers family. We appreciated the generous gift that helped with the last week of our road-trips, and the personal gifts, cards and good wishes that helped us so much. And thanks to our friends on our Facebook page, who commented with kind words, and put up with oh-so-much talk about our daily road-trips. We love and appreciate you all.
All Praise to Thee, For Thou, O King Divine was a new recording adventure for us! In the last couple of weeks, we’ve been making daily road-trips (Monday-Friday) between Holland and Ann Arbor for Larry’s radiation treatment. Spending more than 6 hours a day in the car definitely makes us appreciate our weekends!
Here’s our video. Please be warned; this was very much a read-through. If we’d taken time to rehearse, it would have looked and sounded smoother, but… well, the weekend was too short!
As you can see from the video, this arrangement has no bell-sharing between ringers. If your handbell choir is observing social distancing, and playing from spaced-apart tables, this piece could work well!
Where to find the sheet music
All Praise to Thee, for Thou, O King Divine is written for 3-5 octaves of handbells, with an octave of (optional) chimes. The sheet music is available to download from Choraegus.
Choraegus handbell music is designed to be downloaded 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 entitles you to print out up to 15 copies for your group. Please read our licensing agreement for full information. If you’re new to buying music from Choraegus, we recommend our step-by-step guide!
Any questions?
If you have any questions about buying or playing our music, please look at the Frequently-Asked Questions first. If you don’t find the answers you need, please contact us and we’ll be happy to help.
Come, Thou Almighty King is our newest arrangement for sixteen handbells. We received a request for this piece, and recorded the demonstration video after Larry came back from his first radiation treatment. It’s more of a read-through than a performance, but you should get the idea of how the piece could sound with the benefit of more rehearsal time!
Come, Thou Almighty King is sung to the ITALIAN HYMN tune, written in 1769. This arrangement is the most straightforward (so far) of all our 16-bell arrangements. It contains no bell changes, and needs no bell-sharing. There are no techniques that require tables. Up to 8 ringers could play it from music stands, even with social distancing.
If you’d like to play Come, Thou Almighty King, the sheet music is available to purchase, download and print from Choraegus. Other 16-bell music is also available. If you don’t see the title you’re looking for, you’re always welcome to suggest a piece you’d like to play. Larry is writing new music all the time!
More information (the small print)
Purchasing this arrangement gives you permission to print and maintain up to eight copies for your handbell group. Don’t pay for more copies than you need! Purchase also gives permission for performance, broadcasting, live-streaming and video-sharing online. See our licensing agreement for full details. In addition, please 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 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. Please contact us if you don’t find the information you need, and we’ll be happy to help!
Some of you may remember that Larry had prostate surgery at the beginning of 2019. We originally had high hopes that the surgery would be the end of Larry’s prostate cancer. Towards the end of 2019, we were told that Larry was cancer-free, and we celebrated.
However, things changed in late December 2019, when one of Larry’s routine blood tests came back with a worrying result. Hoping it was just a blip, he did another test, and the result was worse. We were referred to a local radiation oncologist here in Holland, and told that there was a high probability that the cancer had returned.
Prostate cancer can hide for a long time!
The problem with prostate cancer recurrence is that it’s not always easy to know where the cancer is hiding. After a couple more blood tests, the radiation oncologist referred Larry for an Axumin PET scan in Grand Rapids at the beginning of May. However, here in the USA, it often seems that medical treatment is decided not so much by the doctors as by the insurance companies. Our health insurance company refused to approve the PET scan, so the appointment was cancelled. We were very disappointed, but focused on Larry’s shoulder surgery, which had been scheduled for May.
Last summer, as he recovered from shoulder surgery, Larry had more tests. He had a bone scan, an MRI, a kidney ultrasound, and a renal nuclear scan. None of those tests showed us where the cancer was hiding. We continued life as normal, as far as we could – driving up to Bay View for days and weekends by the lake, and driving back to Holland for more doctors’ appointments.
Finally, a PET scan!
When summer was over, we were growing anxious that Larry hadn’t started any treatment for his cancer recurrence. We decided to try again to get the much-needed PET scan. After some online searching, we found out that there was a clinical trial of a PSMA PET scan at the University of Michigan hospital. We took a deep breath, contacted the hospital, and asked if Larry qualified for the scan. Our insurance once again refused to cover it, so we were left with no option but to agree to pay the cost ourselves.
At the start of November, we drove to Ann Arbor, where Larry had the PSMA PET scan. Here he is, at the hospital, before the scan – still smiling behind the mask.
The scan results came back, showing that the cancer had spread to a lymph node. We made an appointment to see an oncologist at the University of Michigan.
Next steps
The next chapter in Larry’s treatment will include radiation at the University of Michigan Hospital. The treatment starts on Tuesday, January 19, and will be Monday-Friday; twenty sessions over four weeks. The hospital is 3 hours away from where we live, and Larry is planning to drive there (and back) every day for as long as it’s possible. We love long road-trips, right?
2020 was not the best of years. You know that already
2020 was a tough year for lots of people, us included. It left us with a ton of stress, a heap of worries, and more medical bills than we know what to do with. However, Larry’s still feeling well. He’s still writing handbell music, singing for online church services, and doing life as normal. We have each other, and friends to cheer us on, and we’re thankful.
Larry will be receiving treatment for the next six months – and by the end of this year, we should know if the treatment has been successful. We appreciate all love, prayers and positive thoughts as we go through this next chapter in our story.
16-bell music has been a fairly recent recording project for us. It’s been an exciting challenge to put together some new demonstration videos.
Holy, Holy, Holy is our latest arrangement for sixteen handbells. We enjoyed recording this piece as a duet project, and we love how pretty the snow looks in the background!
This arrangement is straightforward to play, and contains no bell changes and no accidentals to pick up mid-piece. There are no techniques that require tables, so it’s suitable for a socially-distanced group to play from music stands.
If you’d like to play Holy, Holy, Holy, the sheet music is available to purchase, download and print from Choraegus. Other 16-bell music is also available. If you don’t see the title you’re looking for, please let us know, and we’ll see what we can do!
More information (the small print)
Purchasing this arrangement gives you permission to print and maintain up to eight copies for your handbell group. Don’t pay for more copies than you need! Purchase also gives permission for performance, broadcasting, live-streaming and video-sharing online. See our licensing agreement for full details. In addition, please 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 sheet music is designed to be downloaded as PDFs, so 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.
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 information you need, and we’ll do what we can to help!
It’s the time of year when we like to look back at our handbell performances during the busy run-up to Christmas. We’re talking about a very different kind of holiday season!
Our busiest time of the year usually begins in late November and continues all through December. In past years, there have been weeks when we’ve felt as though we hardly seen our home during the run-up to Christmas! However, in recent months, churches have been holding services online, and community groups have been unable to meet in person. Senior communities have been closed to visitors, and company Christmas events were canceled. It seemed that no one was having holiday parties or booking musicians for performances this winter.
So, what did we do during this unusually quiet holiday season?
We are very fortunate to have been able to make handbell music together in recent months. It’s true that the COVID-19 situation had a dramatic effect on our handbell performance opportunities. However, we were still able to write and play music as a handbell duo, and we’re thankful for that. We took the opportunity to play and record some of our 12- and 16-bell music. It was a new adventure for us, and we were pleased with how several of the videos turned out. Here’s The First Nowell:
Continuing a holiday tradition
One of our favorite regular holiday performance venues is the Kerstmarkt in Downtown Holland. It’s an outdoor, European-style Christmas market, and we were happy that the event could still take place this year. We gave two evening performances at the Kerstmarkt, and enjoyed it as much as ever, in spite of the chilly weather!
Virtual performances
For one of our performances this December, we took a virtual trip to Colorado! A Denver-based community group asked us to prepare an online handbell program for their holiday gathering. We gave this event a lot of thought, and decided that it would be too risky to give a “live” performance on Zoom. We occasionally have issues with our internet connection, and couldn’t be certain how well the tone of our handbells would come across online.
To solve this problem, we recorded the program beforehand and uploaded it as a YouTube video for the group to watch. We soon discovered how much more stressful it is to introduce a handbell performance when you’re talking to a camera instead of a real audience! Here we are, by the Christmas tree, trying failing to talk without looking awkward:
On the evening of the virtual performance, we joined the group in a Zoom question-and-answer session. It was a good way to share our music with a far-away group, and we’d definitely consider doing something similar again.
Christmas concerts
We had fun putting together some online performances for the Kalamazoo Ringers’ Home for Christmas virtual concert. Carla produced the video for the group, combining recordings from last year’s Christmas Traditions concert with some new performances. These new performances were by several small ensembles and a soloist. Here’s our lively arrangement of Ding Dong, Merrily on High, with Martha and Gary Matthews on flute and piano:
We also spent some time putting together our own Christmas handbell duet concert. We’d recorded the 6- and 8-bell music in late October, at our summer cottage at Bay View in northern Michigan. The cottage was seriously cold at the time! We showed some photos taken during the snowy months, when the Victorian cottages at Bay View are closed up for the winter. Lake Michigan is breathtakingly beautiful when it’s covered in ice!
In-person performances
We received a fairly last-minute invitation to play at the Burcham Hills Festival of Lights in East Lansing. This it turned out to be a very festive evening! The event was totally contactless, with families driving through in their cars, stopping to meet Santa and listen to our Christmas music. The organizers had made great efforts to keep this community event safe for everyone. We played our handbell duets on two consecutive evenings – and yes, it was cold! The Christmas lights twinkled in the darkness, and people seemed to enjoy the festivities.
A busy month at church
While Carla was busy editing concert videos, Larry had a busy month as a cantor/music mixer for our church’s online worship services. We made videos of our handbell duets for Advent and Christmas services, and took part in an online Christmas Eve concert with other musicians from the church. Just before Christmas, we recorded a brand-new arrangement of Hark! The Herald Angels Sing with Linda Strouf. Linda mastered the interesting piano part after a very short rehearsal time! You can find the video on our Facebook page.
On the Sunday after Christmas Day, we went to South Haven First United Methodist Church to play some carols there. We recorded some handbell music in the sanctuary, ready for the service to be broadcast later in the day. We appreciated this final opportunity to share some of our Christmas music before putting away the carols for a while.
All in all, it was a very quiet holiday season for us. In some ways, we missed the usual flurry of activity. However, we did enjoy the opportunity to take December a little more calmly. A huge bonus was being able to enjoy so many of the online handbell concerts posted by groups across the world. We watched handbell performances by groups we’d never usually have the opportunity to see. Many small ensembles performed Choraegus handbell music this holiday season, and we were thankful for that too.
Looking ahead to 2021
What will 2021 look like for handbell performances and live music events? It’s too early to say! We hope that at some point in the coming months, we’ll be able to share our music with in-person audiences again. In the meantime, our thanks go to everyone who invited us to be part of their masked-and-socially-distant 2020 holiday events!
Our online Christmas handbell concert is ready to watch! We’re happy to bring you our 2020 concert – recorded at our summer cottage in Bay View, Michigan. Watch the concert to see and hear some of our favorite holiday 8-bell duets, enjoy some photos of Bay View in the winter, and grab the opportunity to download a brand-new Christmas carol for 8 bells and piano – free of charge until Christmas Day 2020!
The following handbell duets are featured in this concert:
Creator of the Stars of Night Hills of the North, Rejoice The Cherry Tree Carol Angels from the Realms of Glory Silent Night ‘Twas in the Moon of Wintertime The Angel Gabriel from Heaven Came I Saw Three Ships O Come, O Come, Emmanuel De Zak van Sinterklaas Away in a Manger (Cradle Song) Away in a Manger (Murray) In the Bleak Midwinter Angels We Have Heard on High Hoe Leit dit Kindeke Jingle Bells and FREE MUSIC OPPORTUNITY!
All of the 6- and 8-bell pieces featured in our concert are available to purchase and download from Choraegus, our music site. If you enjoyed our Christmas concert, please feel welcome to share the video with your family and friends as we celebrate the Christmas season with handbell music!
If you have any questions for us, please contact us and we’ll be happy to help!
Here’s another demonstration video of a 12-bell piece – Away in a Manger.
We recorded this video in the same way as we made our other recent 12- and 16-bell projects – in two separate parts. This arrangement has no bell-sharing, no accidentals, and no need for tables, which makes it particularly suitable for a small group of socially-distanced musicians. It could be played by 3-6 ringers, using spaced-apart music stands, and two versions are available – either using bells C5-G6 (as in our demo video), or using F5-C7.
Would you like to play this piece?
If you’d like to play Away in a Manger, the sheet music is available to purchase, download and print from Choraegus. Purchasing this arrangement gives you permission to print and maintain up to six copies for your handbell group – so you only need to pay once. Your purchase also gives permission for performance, broadcasting, live-streaming and video-sharing online. See our licensing agreement for full details, and 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, so 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 do what we can to help!
Here’s another demonstration video of a 12-bell piece – Angels from the Realms of Glory.
This video was recorded in the same way as our other recent 12- and 16-bell projects – in two separate parts. We recorded this video in the evening – half just before dark, and half just after, as you can see from the two sides of the recording!
This arrangement has no bell-sharing and no accidentals, making it particularly suitable for a small group of socially-distanced musicians. There’s no need for tables, so the arrangement can be played by 3-6 ringers using spaced-apart music stands. Two versions are available – either using bells C5-G6 (as in our demo video), or using F5-C7.
If you’d like to play Angels from the Realms of Glory, the sheet music is available to purchase, download and print from Choraegus. Purchasing this arrangement gives you permission to print and maintain up to six 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, and 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, designed to help you navigate the purchase and download process in a (we hope!) stress-free way.
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!
