Tag Archives: Riverside

Our Handbell Duet Concert in Riverside, IL

We were excited to be invited to Riverside, Illinois, to give a handbell duet concert as part of Ascension Lutheran Church’s 2025-26 concert series. We don’t travel out of Michigan for performances often, so it’s always fun when we can do it!

Riverside isn’t far from Chicago; about a 3-hour drive from where we live. We drove there on the Saturday, and our first task was to find the church, tucked away among the houses.

Handbell duo Larry and Carla at Ascension Lutheran Church, Riverside IL
Outside Ascension Lutheran Church, in Riverside IL

A warm welcome at Ascension Lutheran Church

Ascension Lutheran Church turned out to be the perfect concert venue for us. The people are friendly and welcoming, the building is beautiful, inside and out, and it’s just a lovely space for sharing music. It can be daunting to think about presenting an entire concert with just 8-bell music, but we do appreciate the opportunity to share our handbell duets with an audience. We decided to take our handchimes with us for this concert in Riverside, for a change of mood that keeps things interesting. We were happy to be able to collaborate with two talented musicians from Chicago for several accompanied pieces too. The first of those was Shall We Gather at the River. Here’s a video from our rehearsal. This was the first time we’d played the piece through with pianist Paula Gelpi. It was also the first time Paula had heard handbells!

We played a variety of 8-bell duets, including Greensleeves, Calliope House, Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise, and Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing. Attende Domine proved to be a nice addition on handchimes. It seemed particularly appropriate for a concert during Lent, as it’s also known as the Lent Prose. We also included one 6-bell piece – Hyfrydol – which is one of the most challenging of our 6-bell arrangements. This piece is fast, and takes a lot of concentration. It also helps to have a skilled pianist, of course, and Paula Gelpi took it all in her stride. She took off faster than we’d expected during our first run-through before the concert, and we were glad we’d spent a lot of time working on this piece. Through gritted teeth, we kept up, and slowed it down ever-so-slightly for the actual concert.

Blessed Assurance

For the final piece of the concert, the talented Christie Miller joined us on clarinet. Here’s a rehearsal video of Blessed Assurance. It’s always a treat for us to be able to include accompanied pieces in our performances. We rehearse with mp3 practice tracks on a phone, but being able to collaborate with talented musicians is so much better! Larry originally arranged Blessed Assurance for handbells, piano and flute, but when we found out that Christie was available to join us, Larry adapted the score for clarinet too! Both options are now available, for anyone else interested in playing this arrangement:

Thanks to all at Ascension Lutheran Church!

Our thanks go to Dan McDaniel, Director of Music, and to Mary C, for the warm welcome to Ascension Lutheran Church. We’re also grateful to Paula and Christie for sharing their talents so generously with us. Thank you to everyone who came to our concert!

Larry and Carla, handbells, with Paula Gelpi, piano, in Riverside, IL
After the concert, with pianist Paula Gelpi

Handbell Duet Concert at Ascension Lutheran Church, Riverside, IL

March 22 at 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm EDT

Ascension Lutheran Church, Riverside IL is the venue for this concert by Michigan handbell duo Larry and Carla. The event is part of the Ascension Concert Series 2025 – 2026.

Larry and Carla are a married couple, brought together by their passion for handbells. They first met when they were living more than 5,000 miles apart – Larry in California and Carla in England. They’ve been playing handbell duets together since 2012. Larry arranges all of their music, and together they run their handbell publishing company, Choraegus, from their home in Holland, Michigan.

Larry and Carla’s program will include a selection of beloved hymns, classical pieces and traditional melodies. They’ll demonstrate the traditional “four-in-hand” technique, using just eight handbells for all their music! Their program will include Amazing Grace, O, the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus, Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing and other tunes you’ll recognize. You’ll also find out more about handbells, their history, and how they’re played. Larry and Carla will be joined for part of this concert by Paula Gelpi (piano) and Christie Miller (clarinet).

The handbell concert at Ascension Lutheran Church is free to attend.

Ascension Lutheran Church, Riverside - Handbell Concert poster
Free Admission is free

Ascension Lutheran Church

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Ascension Lutheran Church

400 Nuttall Rd
Riverside, Illinois 60546 United States + Google Map
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Ascension Riverside Concert Series

Photos and Videos from the 34th Annual SECC Handbell Festival

The SECC Handbell Festival was a great success. More than a hundred skilled young handbell musicians attended, and worked very hard to prepare for the concert. Larry had the privilege of being their clinician for the event.

We were both so impressed by the skill and dedication of the young musicians at this event. The choirs arrived well-prepared, and stayed focused throughout the rehearsals. Their individual performances were of a very high standard, and they performed the massed ringing pieces very well. If you’d like to see some of the highlights from the SECC Handbell Festival, here’s a video with excerpts from the rehearsals and the evening concert. The concert featured music by Arnold Sherman, Kevin McChesney, William Gross, Jason Krug, Linda McKechnie, Tim Waugh, Michael Glasgow, Catherine McMichael, Matthew Compton and our very own Larry Sue. A snippet from our performance of our eight-bell duet “Great is Thy Faithfulness” appears about 18 minutes into the video.

We also very much enjoyed this performance of Matthew Compton’s arrangement of “Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel?”, by Bellissimo, a group from Redlands Advent Academy. Here’s a video from the event:

If you’d like to see more photos from this event, you can find them on our Facebook page!

Handbell duo Larry and Carla Sue at the 34th Annual SECC Handbell Festival, Riverside, CA
34th Annual SECC Handbell Festival, Riverside, CA – 2015

Southeastern Conference Advanced Handbell Festival

We’re excited that Larry has been invited to be the clinician at the SECC Advanced Handbell Festival this year!

We’re looking forward to making a trip to Riverside for this one-day event. Larry will be leading rehearsals with advanced young handbell musicians, and preparing for an evening concert. The handbell choirs will work on massed-ringing pieces to perform as a group, and will also prepare individual performance pieces. We’ll be playing an 8-bell duet or two during the concert too!

We’re looking forward to our visit to Riverside, and hope to do some sightseeing after the Advanced Handbell Festival. We’re also making tentative plans to play handbell duets in a church service on the Sunday morning. We’ll give you more details about this as they become available. Keep an eye on our Facebook page for updates!

If you’re in the area, you might like to join us on Friday, March 13, for the evening concert at La Sierra University’s Alumni Pavilion. There should be some exciting music to listen to, performed by some of the area’s finest young handbell musicians. Find out more information from the SECC Office of information, or contact us if you have any questions we might be able to help with.

Advanced Handbell Festival 2015