The Music Ministry of Second Reformed Church in Zeeland welcomes guests to attend a celebration of the Sounds of the Christmas Season, featuring Larry and Carla, handbell musicians from Holland. We are pleased to welcome this husband and wife duo whose repertoire extends across the entire spectrum of hymns, classical music, Christmas carols and folk music. They aim to demonstrate that handbell performances are not only beautiful to listen to, but also create graceful and interesting visual art. Larry and Carla Sue will share their talent in a free concert at 5:00 pm on Sunday, December 4. Second Reformed Church is located at 225 E. Central Avenue. No tickets required. Guests are cordially invited to remain for refreshments and for an opportunity to meet the musicians following the recital.
Join Larry and Carla to celebrate the season with beautiful music written for handbells.
About Larry and Carla
Larry and Carla started playing handbells in 1987; Larry in California, and Carla in England. Carla has performed and taught extensively throughout England, and also in Estonia, France and the USA. Larry was a member and director of several handbell choirs in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. He is a published handbell composer, bass handbell specialist, and the author of The Bass Ringer’s Notebook. Larry is also a recipient of the Donald E. Allured Award for Handbell Composition.
Larry and Carla first met online on a website for handbell musicians. After a couple of years in a long-distance relationship, they were married in California in 2012 and started performing handbell duets together. In 2016, they moved to Holland, Michigan. They arrange all their own music, both secular and sacred, and run their own publishing company, Choraegus. Larry and Carla aim to demonstrate that handbell performances are not only beautiful to listen to, but can also be graceful and interesting to watch.
For this Holiday Handbell Duets concert, Larry and Carla will be performing with Malmark handbells and handchimes. Their repertoire will include a selection of traditional Advent and Christmas carols from around the world.
Free Admission is free, but donations to support the recital series are appreciated.
Second Reformed Church of Zeeland
Second Reformed Church of Zeeland
225 E Central Ave Zeeland,
Michigan
49464United States+ Google Map
The Monday Musical Club is a non-profit organisation dedicated to music education and promotion of creative and performing arts. Based in St. Joseph, Michigan, they hold a wide variety of education events and music performances. We were excited to be asked to present a shared concert with our friends Gary and Martha Matthews!
About Gary and Martha Matthews
Gary and Martha also live in Holland, and they’re a talented couple! Gary studied organ, music education, and sacred music, and holds a doctorate in Worship Studies. He served as Pastor of Worship and the Arts at Highland Park Baptist Church in Southfield, MI, and at Christ Memorial Church in Holland, MI. He’s a published composer, and has been performing for more than forty years, with piano, organ, trumpet and voice.
Martha holds a Bachelors in Music Education and a Masters in Flute Performance. She has played principal flute with Florida Symphonic Pops, Florida Wind Symphony, Gold Coast Opera, Gold Coast Ballet and the Washington Idaho Symphony. Martha directs the Kalamazoo Ringers, and is a sought-after handbell clinician. In concert with Gary, she plays flute, whistles, bell tree, and piano.
A concert with handbells, flute, piano, trumpet, and more!
We held our shared concert at First Congregational Church of St. Joseph. This is a beautiful sanctuary for a music performance! It was a treat for the four of us to be able to perform together. We’d spent most of our summer at our cottage near Petoskey, and Gary and Martha had been in Holland. Planning a concert and rehearsing is a challenge when you’re in different towns! Thanks to the power of email, and our individual rehearsals, we made it work.
Our program included music on a variety of instruments, including handbells (of course!) Gary and Martha opened the concert with a piece for piano and trumpet, and we continued with a couple of our favorite handbell duets. We also enjoyed the opportunity to get together as a quartet to perform some pieces – including Larry’s infamous arrangement of Hark! The Herald Angels Sing that the four of us had previously played for one of the Kalamazoo Ringers’ online Christmas concerts. We all played Blessed Assurance together, with a brand-new flute part that Larry had written specially for this concert. It was fun to find that some of the audience hadn’t seen handbells played in our 4-in-hand style before. We talked to audience members afterwards, and answered questions about our technique and the way we move.
Here’s the full program!
We enjoyed listening to Gary and Martha’s pieces, particularly Brent Olstad’s I Love to Tell the Story. Martha’s flute-played was enthralling to hear, and the audience clearly loved this piece. We finished the concert with an extra surprise – Larry’s lively arrangement of Ding Dong, Merrily on High. This is another arrangement for handbells, piano and flute, and it makes a perfect ending for a concert.
Our thanks go to the Monday Musical Club for inviting us to share our music in concert, and to everyone who came to listen. We hope to have the opportunity to perform in concert with Gary and Martha again someday!
If you’d like to provide an opportunity for us to perform in concert with Gary and Martha again, or you’d like to host a handbell duet performance, please get in touch with us, and we’ll talk more!
Michigan handbell duo Larry and Carla will be performing a shared concert with Gary and Martha Matthews, as guests of the Monday Musical Club of Southwestern Michigan. The Monday Musical Club concert will feature an exciting program, with handbells, flute, piano, trumpet, whistles and vocals.
About Gary and Martha Matthews
Gary Matthews holds music degrees in Organ, Music Education and Sacred Music, and earned a doctorate in Worship Studies. He is also a published composer. He served as Pastor of Worship and the Arts at Highland Park Baptist Church in Southfield, MI, and at Christ Memorial Church in Holland. Gary is known for his virtuosic playing, as well as his tender expression on piano, organ, trumpet and voice.
Martha Matthews holds a Bachelors in Music Education and a Masters in Flute Performance. She has played principal flute with Florida Symphonic Pops, Florida Wind Symphony, Gold Coast Opera, Gold Coast Ballet and the Washington Idaho Symphony. In concert with Gary, she plays flute, whistles, bells and piano.
About Larry and Carla Sue
Larry and Carla started playing handbells in 1987; Larry in California, and Carla in England. Carla has performed and taught extensively throughout England, and also in Estonia, France and the USA. Larry was a member and director of several handbell choirs in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. He is a published handbell composer, bass handbell specialist, and the author of The Bass Ringer’s Notebook. Larry is also a recipient of the Donald E. Allured Award for Handbell Composition.
Larry and Carla first met online on a website for handbell musicians. After a couple of years in a long-distance relationship, they were married in California in 2012 and started performing handbell duets together. They arrange all their own music, both secular and sacred, and run their own publishing company, Choraegus. Larry and Carla aim to demonstrate that handbell performances are not only beautiful to listen to, but can also be graceful and interesting to watch.
Monday’s program will include the first-ever performance of a new flute part for Larry Sue’s arrangement of Blessed Assurance.
The Monday Musical Club of Southwestern Michigan is a non-profit philanthropic and educational organization dedicated to music education and promotion of creative and performing arts. The Monday Musical Club has a rich history of providing the local community with a variety of top quality musicians, dancers and other performers.
It’s hard to believe that the 2022 Bay View Week of Handbells was the 11th year we’ve attended this evening together! Of course, that would have happened sooner, if the pandemic hadn’t happened. The 2020 and 2021 Week of Handbells events were cancelled because of Covid-19, so it was a particularly good feeling to get back to it this year.
Our history with the Bay View Week of Handbells
We attended this annual event for the first time in August 2010, when we were still in our long-distance relationship. Carla flew to Chicago from England, and Larry flew in from California. We met in person for the very first time at Chicago O’Hare, and took the short flight to Traverse City together. Until then, we’d only ever communicated online, via Facebook messages, so it was exciting for us to be able to see each other in “real life” and spend time together.
After the 2010 Week of Handbells, we flew back to England and California, and spent a very long year apart. Finally, we were able to meet again at the 2011 Week of Handbells, where we celebrated our engagement with cupcakes at the Monday evening reception. Then we were separated again, returned to England and California, and went through all the challenges of the K-1 fiancée visa process. When the U.S. visa was approved, we were able to make plans to close the distance permanently. Planning the trip was complicated, but we made it all coincide with the 2012 Week of Handbells, and after the event was over, we flew to California to make our wedding plans. Apart from the two years when the event was cancelled, we’ve attended together every year since.
The 2022 Bay View Week of Handbells
This year’s Week of Handbells was a bit different for us, for an important reason; we now have our own Bay View cottage! We bought this Victorian cottage in October 2019, when we became members of the Bay View Association. It was built around 1887, and is a quirky little place, with uneven floors and some interesting features!
We appreciated being able to be “at home” between rehearsals, and to relax in our own place at the end of the day. In previous years, we’ve stayed in hotels, and also rented another of the Victorian cottages on campus. Our cottage is at the bottom of the hill, so we got plenty of exercise walking to and from rehearsals in the auditorium! We also had a steady stream of visitors, and enjoyed giving cottage tours to our handbell friends.
The 2022 event
Once again, Larry had the opportunity to play the aluminum bass bells, in the Deep Pit. Carla played AB5, as coordinator of the Position 7 team. Rehearsals went smoothly this year, and everyone was thankful to be back after the long break. We also heard that Bay View Association members were happy to see the return of the bell ringers, and eagerly awaited the Thursday evening concert.
The repertoire for the 2022 Week of Handbells was as follows:
Festive Praises(Fred Gramann) Tales of the Great Water (Sandra Eithun) Finale (Widor, arr. Fred Gramann) The Entertainer (Joplin, transcribed by Paul Kingbury) – available from Choraegus Intrepid (Jason Krug) Change Ring Prelude on ‘Fred Gramann’ (Jantz Black) Aurora (Matthew Compton) Aria (Donald Allured) São Paulo (Elizabeth Peters) The Sound of Silence (Paul Simon, arr. Matthew Compton) Bulwarkana (Alex Guebert) Puttin’ on the Ritz (Berlin, arr. Hart Morris) The Lord Bless You and Keep You (Peter Lutkin)
There were five winners of the Donald E. Allured Composition Award at this year’s concert. Was this a record? Sandra Eithun’s Tales of the Great Water was performed for the first time at the 2022 Week of Handbells, and we were all happy that she came to the concert to hear it!
Catherine McMichael, Sandra Eithun, Larry Sue, Alex Guebert and Matthew Compton
As usual, the week was a very busy one. Rehearsals are long and intense, and there isn’t a lot of spare time, although we always appreciate the Bay View sunsets, the opportunity to gather with friends on the Wednesday “evening off”, and the Bay View Memorial Garden, where the flowers never disappoint.
What’s next?
Now that we’ve put away our 2022 Week of Handbells music, we’re moving on to more duet performances, writing and playing new music, and preparing for the holiday season. We’ll still be spending as much time as we can at Bay View – driving back and forth between Holland and Petoskey – until the time comes to close up the cottage for the winter months. Before too long, it will be time to sign up for the 2023 event – and we’re already looking forward to it!
We’re looking forward to the Bay View Week of Handbells 2022. More than 100 handbell musicians will be performing some beautiful and challenging music under the baton of director Fred Gramann.
The 2020 and 2021 events had to be cancelled because of the pandemic. This year’s event will be a happy reunion for so many of the handbell musicians! For the last two years, smaller handbell events have taken place on the Bay View campus, including duet performances. This year, we’re all thankful to be able to offer the traditional concert in the John M. Hall Auditorium again.
Here’s a photo of the small gathering at Bay View in 2021:
Here’s an example of the type of music you’ll hear at the concert in the auditorium. This is Larry’s original composition A Minor Crash, performed by the musicians at the 2019 Week of Handbells:
The concert for the Bay View Week of Handbells 2022 will be held on Thursday, August 18th, at 7:30pm. The venue will be the John M. Hall Auditorium, 1715 Encampment Avenue, Petoskey, Michigan.
Admission is free, and an offering will be taken to benefit the Bay View Association Music Scholarship Fund. There’s no need to book tickets in advance, but you should plan to arrive in plenty of time. It’s always a popular concert!
Bay View Week of Handbells venue – The John M Hall Auditorium
Free
John M. Hall Auditorium
1725 Encampment Ave Petoskey,
MI
MI 49770United States+ Google Map
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:
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 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.
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!
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!
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.
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!
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!
The Michigan lockdown has had a huge effect on live music performances. It was a very necessary process, but people have been missing the usual round of concerts and music-sharing events. Yesterday was an exciting day for us, because we had a long-awaited opportunity to get back to giving a real-life handbell duet performance – in front of an actual audience!
Today’s handbell program
Our handbell duet program was for the American Guild of Organists, Holland Area Chapter. The group had originally scheduled our performance to take place in May. However, the unhappy combination of Larry’s shoulder surgery and the COVID-19 pandemic put a stop to that! The AGO’s spring schedule was cut short, and our performance couldn’t happen. We were thankful to have an opportunity to present our handbell program today instead!
We appreciated the careful preparation for our performance. It took place outdoors, at First Reformed Church here in Holland, Michigan. The audience observed careful social distancing, and masks were worn. The sound system was there to make sure everyone could hear us. We were also far enough away from the audience to be able to take our masks off during our performance.
This summer, with the lack of performance opportunities, we focused our energy on writing and publishing new music. Today gave us the chance to perform some of the new pieces for the first time. These pieces included our not-yet-published 8-bell Chopsticks, and our recent arrangements of Beach Spring and I Stand Amazed.
One of the things we enjoy most is answering questions about handbells. We were happy to talk about the four-in-hand techniques we use, and about the music we play and where to find it. We also talked about the challenges for handbell choirs in this time of social distancing. There were several handbell musicians/directors in the audience, and we enjoyed hearing about how their choirs are sharing music. It was also fun to talk about the music available from Choraegus that’s suitable for socially-distanced handbell choirs to play!
Thanks to all involved!
Our thanks go to the Holland Area AGO for inviting us to present this handbell program. We’re also thankful to First Reformed Church of Holland for hosting the event and making us so welcome. Thanks to everyone who put on their mask and came along to support and encourage us!
Before we launch into rehearsals for Advent and Christmas, we have just one more performance to do! Tomorrow we’ll be driving across Michigan to Gregory, to play in the morning service at Southwest Church of the Nazarene. In the afternoon we’ll be presenting a handbell duet concert of hymns and beautiful melodies to soothe your soul and lift your spirits. We’ll be playing well-known hymns such as Holy Manna, It Is Well with my Soul, and Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing. We’ll also be playing some traditional pieces from Scotland, Ireland, Holland and Japan. We might even sneak in a couple of Advent and Christmas carols, because that season is fast-approaching! There will also be a chance to ask us questions about our music and our instruments.
Admission to the concert is free, with an opportunity for a free-will offering. We’d love to see you there!
Would you like us to play handbells at your church?
We have a wide repertoire of handbell duets suitable for worship, or for concerts. We invite you to read about our handbell ministry, and look at independent reviews of our performances. Please contact us if you’d like us to play a handbell duet concert at your church. We’re based in Holland, Michigan, but we’re happy to travel nationwide or internationally.
