Tag Archives: performance

Let the Merry Bells Ring – a Concert with VoiceWorks

Let the Merry Bells Ring! We’re looking forward to presenting this holiday concert with VoiceWorks in Redwood City. The choirs will be singing, our bells will be ringing, and we’ll all be celebrating the sounds of the season with carols and wintry holiday music.

VoiceWorks is a community choir of young voices, directed by Catherine Doyle. Their music will be accompanied by pianists Leslie Chang, Brian Connor and Russell Green. We’ll be adding specially-arranged handbell parts to some of the choir pieces for this concert, and we’ll also be performing some duets on our own. There’s something very special about the combination of voices and bells at this time of year, and we’re looking forward to being part of this event.

It’s all happening at 4:00pm on Sunday, December 13th, at the Unitarian Universal Fellowship of Redwood City, CA 94062. Tickets are $15, or $10 for students or seniors. You can buy your tickets in advance, or at the door. Contact us if you have any questions, and we can put you in touch with the choir director.

We hope to see you at this concert. Let the merry bells ring, voices sing, and celebrate the holiday season in Redwood City!

Let the Merry Bells Ring

Coming Soon – Another Alzheimer’s Benefit Concert

We’re excited to be taking part in another Alzheimer’s Benefit concert! These concerts help raise money for research and services provided by the Alzheimer’s Association.

This concert will take place at Los Altos United Methodist Church on October 3rd, 2015 at 3:00pm. The performance will feature Larry and Carla Sue playing handbells, and Brian Holmes on the Alphorn. Dylan Damonte will play percussion, and concert organiser T. Paul Rosas will play organ and piano.

Admission to the concert is free, and an offering will be collected for the Alzheimer’s Association. There’s no need to apply for tickets in advance. You’ll be very welcome on the day! If you’ve never heard an Alphorn, there’s even more reason to attend. Brian Holmes is an expert, and he’ll tell you everything you need to know about this unusual instrument. You might even get the opportunity to participate in the performance of one of the pieces!

If you’re unable to attend the Alzheimer’s Benefit Concert, you can still make a donation if you’d like to. Please contact us and we can tell you how!

Alzheimer's Benefit Concert 2015

Here we are, pictured with T. Paul Rosas at Los Altos United Methodist Church. We hope to see you at the concert!

The 2015 Bay View Week of Handbells Starts Today!

Bay View 2015 copy

Today marks the first day of the 2015 Bay View Week of Handbells! The next four days will be full of music at the John M. Hall Auditorium, as more than a hundred handbell musicians rehearse together under the direction of Carl Wiltse.

You can find out more about this event, and why it will always hold a special place in our hearts, by reading our recent post about the Bay View Week of Handbells and taking a look at our gallery of photos.

Come to the concert!

If you’re in the area, and you’d like to attend the free concert, there’s no need to book tickets in advance. The concert will be held on Thursday, August 20, 2015 at 8:00pm in the John M. Hall Auditorium, 1715 Encampment Ave., Petoskey, Michigan. An offering will be taken to benefit the Bay View Association Music Scholarship Fund. You should plan to arrive in plenty of time to get good seats, because it’s a popular concert!

Here’s a recording from last year’s Week of Handbells – it’s Larry’s original composition A Snail’s Pace.

As usual, Pierpont Productions will make a professional recording of the concert. If you’d like your own copy of the recording, you can order one from Pierpont Productions at 231-347-4488. Alternatively, fill out the order envelope available on the day of the concert.

We’d love to see you at the 2015 Bay View Week of Handbells!

Handbell Duets at the Chapel of the Chimes, Hayward

What do you do when it’s the Fourth of July, and you’ve finished eating party food and having fun with family and friends? The answer is… play handbell duets, of course!

handbell duets at the Chapel of the Chimes

An impromptu handbell duet performance

We were in Hayward, California for a family gathering, and we decided we needed to burn off some of the calories we’d consumed at lunch time. We were driving in the direction of home, and noticed the Chapel of the Chimes. Suddenly looked like a great location for a Concert With No Audience! 

The Chapel of the Chimes is a 61-acre cemetery, crematorium and funeral home complex. It didn’t appear that we’d be disturbing anyone with our music, so we set up our table and bells. We played duets for around forty minutes! It was a great opportunity to play through some of the music for our visit to Los Altos Lutheran Church the following day. We also brought out some of the older pieces we hadn’t played for a very long time!

We had the usual interesting challenges that go with outdoor performances – a strong breeze, traffic noise, and even some festive firecrackers! The location and the sunshine also made it a very stripy-looking performance, as you can see from the video!

The following pieces are on the video:

  • America, the Beautiful
  • Come, Christians, Join to Sing
  • Drink to Me Only
  • Beautiful Dreamer
  • A Mighty Fortress
  • Moreton Bay
  • Great is Thy Faithfulness
  • Danny Boy
  • Botany Bay
  • Earth and All Stars
  • I Need Thee Every Hour
  • The King of Love My Shepherd Is
  • Allegro

We hope you enjoyed our handbell duets at the Chapel of the Chimes. All the pieces we played are available (or coming soon!) from Choraegus. If you’d like to book us for a performance with an audience, please let us know!