December 17 at 2:00 pm – 2:45 pm EST
West Michigan handbell duo Larry and Carla will present a program of Christmas handbell music for residents and guests at a senior living community in Jenison. This is a private event.
August 25 at 10:00 am – 11:00 am EDT
Larry and Carla will be playing handbell duets during the morning service at Third Reformed Church of Holland, Michigan.
We enjoyed the opportunity to share our handbell music with guests at the recent Great Lakes Regional Convention of the AGO. We demonstrated our duets at a reception hosted by Third Reformed Church here in Holland.
For anyone who came to the presentation for the American Guild of Organists (or missed it!), we thought it might be helpful to share some information here.
Several people talked with us about our availability for duet performances. We can also work with individuals and church handbell choirs, either by attending a rehearsal, or leading a workshop session. We can help your ringers improve their basic technique or learn more advanced treble or bass skills. If you’re interested in booking us, please contact us and let us know the type of performance or workshop you’re interested in, your location, and when you’d like the performance to happen.
You can find more information about performances, workshops and our fees in the Book Us section of this website.
To find out more about our handbell music published by Choraegus, check out our music site, where there is a wide variety of music available for anything from one- to eight-octave handbell choirs. That’s where you’ll find the music we demonstrated during the reception, as well as other pieces for full handbell choir, and some music for handbells and organ.
For beginning or less-experienced groups, and also for quartets, we recommend our Surprisingly Easy eight-bell pieces. Our 8-bell music can also be useful for small groups of ringers who want an extra challenge. It can work well for small groups who want to continue ringing through the summer when the choir is taking a break.
Music from Choraegus will come to you as a digital download; a PDF file with permission to make a certain number of copies for your group. You can find more information and all the “small print” in the licensing agreement, and we also recommend our step-by-step guide!
If you’d like to try our 8-bell music before you spend any money, you might like to check out some of our free arrangements. Also available for free are the binder cover sheets for our music, as shown on the music binders on display at the reception.
Larry’s book – The Bass Ringer’s Notebook – is available from Choraegus. This is not a digital download; it’s an actual book. We will lovingly package up a copy and send to you by mail when you’ve made your purchase.
Our thanks go to everyone who came to the reception at the Great Lakes Regional Convention of the AGO. Thanks to everyone who asked questions, and listened to our performance. Thanks also to the members of Third Reformed Church for their generous hospitality. If there’s anything we forgot to mention here, or you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us, and we’ll be happy to help!
November 29 at 3:00 pm – 5:00 pm EST
July 25 at 6:30 am – 8:30 pm EDT
Handbell duets in Downtown Holland!
Since moving here in 2016, we’ve enjoyed street performing in Downtown Holland. Thank you to everyone who stopped to listen to our music at the first of this year’s Downtown Holland Street Performer Series. We played our handbell duets for more than two hours on Thursday evening, in perfect spring weather.
If you missed the first evening, the 2019 Street Performer Series runs on Thursdays until the end of August, from 6:30pm to 8:30pm. We’ll be performing again on the following dates:
We also play our handbell duets in Downtown Holland at other times during the summer. Look out for us on 8th Street on Sunday afternoons! If you’re going to be visiting Downtown Holland and you’d like to know when we’re planning our next street performance, please contact us. Sreet performing tends to be weather-dependent, so here in Michigan it’s often a last-minute decision!
Thursdays evenings are always fun in Downtown Holland. Stores and restaurants are open, and 8th Street is full of entertainment. The event is free to attend and enjoy, but tips for the performers are appreciated!
Larry and Carla at the Downtown Holland Street Performer Series
Larry and Carla will be playing handbell duets as part of the 2019 Downtown Holland Street Performer Series. Look for us outside Resthaven Warm Friend on June 13th!
We’ll also be performing outside the Knickerbocker Theatre on July 29th, and again outside Resthaven Warm Friend on August 29th.
This event is sponsored by the Gentex Corporation and supported by Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affairs through the Holland Area Arts Council.
After a successful application process, we’re pleased to be be taking part in the 2019 Downtown Holland Street Performer Series. It’s our third season of performances at this exciting summer event!
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 2019 Street Performer Series starts on Thursday, June 13. It runs for twelve consecutive Thursdays until the end of August, from 6:30pm to 8:30pm.
We’ll be performing our handbell duets on the following dates:
Our thanks go to Gentex Corporation for sponsoring this event, and also to the Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affairs for their support through the Holland Area Arts Council. We’re looking forward to another summer of music in Downtown Holland!
Returning to the San Francisco Bay Area for a concert!
Just three years ago, Larry and Carla Sue left the San Francisco Bay Area and moved to Holland, Michigan. Since then, they have spent their time proving that yes, you can play eight bells with only two ringers, and they’ve built a thriving online music business in the process. Now they’re back in the Bay Area to showcase their talents as a duo, and feature their music.
Larry and Carla first met when they started chatting via an online handbell community. Their in-person meeting was delayed (since Carla lived in England and Larry in California), but a year after they finally connected at a handbell event in 2010, they were engaged. They have been arranging music for handbells and performing duets together ever since. So far, their performances have taken them to Georgia, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Michigan, and New Jersey, and they have been featured at weddings, memorials, concerts, corporate events, worship services, holiday events, classes, workshops, and even on television.
This dynamic duo plays with an ease that showcases what can be accomplished with just two ringers and only eight handbells. The Bay Area is pleased to welcome Larry and Carla back in a one-time concert this spring — don’t miss it!
No tickets required; a free-will offering will be collected to help Handbell Ventures with the cost of bringing Larry and Carla back to the Bay Area. 🙂
Spring has arrived! Here in Holland, Michigan we must admit that we’re sorry to say goodbye to those snowy winter days. However, we’re looking forward to our city’s annual Tulip Time festival in May!
To put us in the mood for spring, our latest 12-bell arrangement is the popular hymn All Things Bright and Beautiful. This hymn is sung to several different tunes, and the one in our arrangement is the seventeenth-century English melody ROYAL OAK.
Our thanks go to J.C. for being willing to help us play through some of our recent 12-bell titles during his recent visit to Michigan. We recorded this video on our first read-through, so absolutely no rehearsal went into this, but you’ll get the idea.
As with all our 12-bell pieces, this arrangement is available in two versions. We played C5 to G6 in our video, but there’s also a version for F5 to C7.
If you’d like to play All Things Bright and Beautiful, you can purchase, download and print the sheet music from Choraegus. You need only pay once, and print out up to 6 copies of this 12-bell piece for your handbell choir.
If you haven’t bought music from us before, we’d recommend that you take a look at the licensing agreement and our step-by-step guide. We designed the guide to help you purchase and download our music in a stress-free way!
If you look on the Choraegus site, you’ll also find our arrangement of All Things Bright and Beautiful for 3-5 octave handbell choir.
If you have any questions about our 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!
