Tag Archives: wedding music

Handbell music at a Wedding in Connecticut

We’ve just returned home from a very long road-trip, all the way from West Michigan to Connecticut and back. We went there for the best-possible reason – for the marriage of two of our friends. It’s been a long time since we played handbell music at a wedding!

With the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve had very few opportunities for road-trips and handbell performances in the last year or so. You can imagine our excitement when we received first a “Save the Date” card, followed by an invitation, for a wedding in Connecticut!

handbell music wedding

A connection made on Facebook!

The bride and groom are a long-distance couple who connected with us on Facebook around ten years ago. At that time, we were still in our own long-distance relationship. Over the years, we’ve connected with a lot of long-distance couples who have contacted us on our Facebook page. Some people reach out to us for one-time advice or support, and we never hear from them again afterwards. However, some couples continue to stay in touch with us, and we’re happy to count them as friends, as we’ve been through similar experiences. It means a lot to us when people share their stories with us, as we shared our long-distance relationship story during the time we were apart.

The bride contacted us on Facebook a few months ago, and asked us if we’d be able to play some handbell duets after their wedding ceremony, to welcome the happy couple and their guests as they left the church. She particularly requested Amazing Grace, so we put together a small selection of hymns and classical music.

Playing handbells outdoors can be interesting!

The day of the wedding dawned dull and cloudy, and we had some concerns about playing outside if it rained. Fortunately the weather stayed dry, if a little windy! As we were attending the wedding primarily as guests, we didn’t want to miss the ceremony, so we stayed until after the vows and rings were exchanged. Then we quickly left the church, and took our bells and equipment down the stairs. We were ready to play in plenty of time for the door to open and the guests to start appearing.

The unexpected challenge of playing handbells in a suit

We coped pretty well with the gusty breeze. When we play outdoors, we’re always thankful for the sheet of plastic that goes over the top of our music to hold it in place! The unexpected challenge turned out to be playing handbells while wearing a suit. As a t-shirt enthusiast, Larry’s not very often seen wearing a suit; in fact this was the first time he’d worn one in more than a decade. Our usual duet performance attire doesn’t involve a suit, and it took a few moments for Larry to adjust his technique so that he didn’t create a “zinging” sound when a bell occasionally collided with a button! Still, all-in-all, the music went very well, and the wedding guests enjoyed it. We received lots of positive comments at the reception afterwards!

Would you like us to play handbells at your wedding?

If you’re hearing wedding bells, and you’d like to find out more about having handbell music for your ceremony, please contact us to find out more about our music, fees and availability. Handbells can be a magical addition to any wedding day!


New 8-Bell Music for Worship and Weddings – St. Anthony Chorale

As Thanksgiving approaches, we’ve been thinking about hymns suitable for worship services at this time of year. Our latest 8-bell arrangement, the St Anthony Chorale, is mostly known as a classical piece. It’s perfect for wedding ceremonies, and for use in worship. It’s the setting for the hymn We, Thy People, Praise Thee, with lyrics by Kate Stearn Page.

We recorded our demonstration video of St. Anthony Chorale in October, in our chilly summer cottage near Petoskey. This arrangement is straightforward to play, and has no bell-sharing, no picking-up of accidentals during the piece, and no need for tables, which makes it particularly suitable for a small group of socially-distanced musicians. It could be played by two, three or four ringers.

If you’d like to play St Anthony Chorale, the sheet music is available to purchase, download and print from Choraegus. Purchasing this arrangement gives you permission to print and maintain up to four copies for your handbell group – so you only need to pay once. Purchase also gives permission for performance, broadcasting, live-streaming and video-sharing online. See our licensing agreement for full details. Please remember to mention the title and arranger of the piece on video-sharing sites, social media and any printed materials such as concert programs.

Please note that our music is designed to be downloaded as PDFs, so you’ll be responsible for printing your own music, and you won’t receive anything in the mail.

If you haven’t purchased music online from Choraegus before, you might like to look at our step-by-step guide. We designed this guide to help you navigate the purchase and download process in a (we hope!) stress-free way.

Any questions?

If you have any questions about our music, please start by reading our Frequently-Asked Questions. Please contact us if you don’t find the answers you need, and we’ll do what we can to help!

St Anthony Chorale for handbells

New Music – Five – for 5 Octaves of Handbells

It’s hard to believe that more than five years have passed since our handbell-music-filled wedding in California. What better way to celebrate a wedding anniversary… than with a new piece of music – for 5 octaves of handbells?

Larry wrote Five as a surprise for Carla, and used secret mysterious powers to compose the whole thing without her even noticing.

Our thanks go to the Carillon Choir at Third Reformed Church of Holland, Michigan and their director Linda Strouf for playing this new piece in the Sunday morning services on our anniversary weekend.

More about Five

Five is an original composition; AGEHR level 2+ . It’s for 5 octaves of handbells and (optional) 2 octaves of handchimes. Quite surprisingly, the time signature is not 5/4 or 5/8. However, there are other “fives” hidden throughout the score.

If you’d like to play this piece, the music is available for purchase and download from Choraegus.

Information about buying music from Choraegus

Choraegus handbell music is designed to be downloaded and printed at home. You’ll be responsible for printing your own music, and you won’t receive anything in the mail. Your purchase entitles you to print up to 15 copies for your group. Please read our licensing agreement for full details. If you’re new to buying Choraegus music, we recommend our step-by-step guide!

Any questions?

If you have any questions about buying or playing our music, you might like to look at our Frequently-Asked Questions. If you don’t find the answers you’re looking for, please contact us, and we’ll be happy to help.

5 octaves of handbells - Five, by Larry Sue
Wedding bells!

New 8-Bell Wedding Ceremony Music

We’ve recently added some more 8-bell wedding ceremony music to our repertoire. These three are all well-known classical pieces.

The first is Mouret’s Rondeau ( Fanfare-Rondeau). Mouret composed this in 1729, as part of his first Suite de Symphonies. This piece is also well-known as the theme from Masterpiece Theatre.

Handel’s Water Music is a collection of orchestral movements from the late 18th century. Handel originally composed the music for orchestra. However, if you only have a few people and 8 handbells, you can play two of the movements: the Bourée and the Air.

Would you like to play these 8-bell arrangements?

If you’d like to play these pieces, the music is available for purchase and download from Choraegus.

When you purchase music from Choraegus, the scores come to you as PDF files. That means you’ll be responsible for printing your own music, and you won’t receive anything in the mail. Purchase of an 8-bell piece entitles you to print up to 4 copies for your handbell group. Please see our licensing agreement for full details.

If you’re buying Choraegus music for the first time, we recommend our step-by-step guide!

Would you like to book us to play handbells for your wedding ceremony?

If you’re getting married and you’d like us to play our 8-bell wedding ceremony music for your special day, please contact us and we’ll see if we can make it happen!

Any questions?

If you have any questions about buying or playing our music, or about booking us to play handbell duets at your event, please contact us!

A Concert With No Audience – in Walnut Grove

Last weekend, we saw the opportunity for another Concert with No Audience in Walnut Grove, California. We set up by the side doors of the Presbyterian church there, and played for an hour or so. There was no audience except the passing traffic, the birds, and a couple of passers-by.

We enjoy giving these “concerts” from time to time. In reality, a concert with no audience is probably not much more than another rehearsal. What makes it different is the possibility that an audience might arrive without warning. When we rehearse, we go back and practise passages of the music that need improvement. When we give a concert, whether to an audience or not, we’re selecting pieces that are performance-ready, and playing them to the best of our ability.

Here’s a video with excerpts from some of the pieces we played, all of which are currently available (or soon to be available) from Choraegus.

Would you like to host a concert – with an audience?

If you’d like to book us to perform a concert at your church, or a performance for your event, please contact us. We’ll bring the music, and you can provide the audience!

Concert with No Audience - Choraegus
Choraegus – Bringing Music to the People

Did We Manage a Weekend Vacation Without Handbells?

Taking a vacation without handbells is clearly a challenge! We spent a lovely long weekend visiting Yosemite National Park. The plan was to enjoy a few days in beautiful surroundings, without the pressure of rehearsals or concerts. That’s quite unusual for us, because we usually only stay away from home when we’re attending a handbell event.

But did we leave our handbells at home?

Well, no. We still took our handbells with us. After all, there was always the possibility we might decide to rehearse in the hotel! Or we might be driving past a wedding and be called upon to play duets. We might even get a sudden phone call asking us to play at a church service. Oh, who are we kidding? It just didn’t seem right to go away for a long weekend without taking the bells with us. Perhaps it is an addiction after all.

We left the bells in the hotel for three whole days without taking them out of the case. But on Sunday morning, we could ignore them no longer, and we decided to find somewhere to rehearse. Just moments away from our hotel in Oakhurst was the Little Church on the Hill – the perfect location!

Vacation without handbells - Little Church on the Hill

Sadly, it turned out not to be such a perfect location, because we were competing with lots of traffic noise – but still, we spent an hour or so playing through some of the music we haven’t played for a while, and we had a great time. Here are some excerpts of the pieces we played:

The idea of a vacation without handbells was nice while it lasted, but turned out to be an impossible goal for us. We hope to be able to play at the Little Church again someday – maybe on our next trip to Yosemite!