Hal Hopson's Come Ye Faithful: A Ceremony of Carols

This year my Presbyterian Church's Chancel Choir is presenting their annual Christmas concert on Sunday, Dec 2.

They like to include a sing-along portion to their Christmas concerts & this year, they've chosen to do 4 selections from Hal Hopson's Come Ye Faithful: A Ceremony of Carols, for SATB choir, organ, orchestra, and handbells!

We are doing these 4 selections: O Come All Ye Faithful, We Three Kings, Silent Night, and Hark the Herals Angels.

The handbell parts aren't huge - they only use 16 notes total for the entire suite - but they do add a nice "flavor" to the music. They're a lot like the stuff seen Hal Hopson's The Creative Use of Handbells in Worship book.

Because the Chancel Choir (with 50 or so singers) will actually be using the orchestra - complete with percussion - and organ, plus congregational singing, I decided to double the entire handbell part up an octave (so we're playing the notated pitches, plus the pitches an octave higher).

Here's the neat part: The entire printed part could be played by a single ringer, so this would be a great way for a soloist to take part in a performance. Doubling it up an octave would be a great way for a duet team to participate. We're actually doing it with 4 ringers because I wanted to not only make it super easy for the ringers (since we got the music with such short notice), but also because I want to "show off" the fact that we've got a bell choir and not just me! :-)