Holland-based handbell duo Larry and Carla will be returning to play handbells at Central United Methodist Church in, Muskegon. They will play several of their 8-bell duets during the morning worship service.
Larry and Carla last played handbells at Central United Methodist Church in November 2020, during online services. Before that, they played in August 2019, which seems like a long time ago! It’s exciting to be back to in-person worship services at this beautiful church.
Handbells will be featured in the prelude, offertory and postlude. You’ll hear a lively arrangement of Holy Manna, their arrangement of David Evans’ beautiful Lucerna Laudoniae (For the Beauty of the Earth), the popular Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing, and the lively hymn To God Be the Glory.
Handbells make a beautiful addition to a worship service, wedding ceremony or memorial service. A handbell duo takes up less room than a traditional full-size handbell choir; ideal for venues where space is limited. If you’d like to find out more about booking Larry and Carla to play for your event or worship service, please get in touch. Larry and Carla are now accepting bookings for Christmas 2022 and beyond. We recommend early booking for summer weddings, and for Christmas and holiday events, but can often accommodate last-minute requests too. If in doubt, ask!
Yay for handbell duets! 2020 has been a challenging year for us, as far as handbell performances are concerned. Larry had shoulder surgery in May, so we initially couldn’t accept any performance bookings for the spring or summer months. Larry eventually recovered enough for us to start playing duets again. However, all the events where we might have played had been cancelled by then! Our summer duet “performances” mostly took place on the porch at our summer cottage in Bay View. Instead, we focused mainly on writing and rehearsing new music.
We eventually had an opportunity to give a duet performance in September. We presented an outdoor handbell program for members of the local branch of the American Guild of Organists. Since then, our booking calendar has been a bleak wasteland… until today, a long-awaited Sunday, when we took our bells to Muskegon for our second visit to Central United Methodist Church.
Playing for an online worship service
This is such a beautiful church to play handbells in! We were initially planning for a socially-distanced in-person worship service today. However, COVID-19 cases have been increasing here in Michigan, so the church wisely made the decision to broadcast the service online instead.
Even though the congregation was an online one this morning, we enjoyed being able to share our music during worship again. Our thanks go to all at Central United Methodist church for the warm welcome we received. We hope it won’t be too long before we’ll be able to go back and play handbells again for an in-person congregation!
Do you need handbell music in your church?
If you’d like us to come to your church and share our handbell music in worship, please get in touch with us!
Handbell duo Larry and Carla will be playing duets in the 9:30am worship service at Central United Methodist Church in Muskegon, on Sunday, August 18th.
