Christmas Eve in Sunnyvale 2008

Every year, the Choir of Bells plays a 30-minute or so "Prelude of Bells" before the 11:00pm Candlelight Service at church.

I am not always there. Sonos has gone to Japan on tour for 5 of the last 7 years (2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, & 2007) & it depends on when we get back whether or not I can actually be at the service to conduct. (I've actually been able to conduct in 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007.) Sonos didn't go this year, so I conducted again.

We're supposed to play a minimum of 30 minutes of music (the church advertises the Prelude starting at 10:30), but sometimes we have more. OK, we *usually* have more! :-) This year was no exception - we started playing at 10:18 & finished at 10:59. In between the pieces, our wonderful organist Valerie Sterk provided transition music as we moved from position to position. We do practice that - our last two rehearsals always include a "tech run through" of the music.

Here's what we played this year:

*) Joy to the World arr. by John Behnke.

The latest edition of Overtones included a one-page Processional intro, so I decided that that would be a great way to open the program. We didn't process, so we just played through it one time, then went into "Joy to the World" proper with the organ playing the hymn from the hymnal, and the bells playing a chordal accompaniment.

*) What is This Lovely Fragrance? arr. by Mike Mazzatenta.

This is a Level One piece to which I added some bass swings and treble shakes here and there & took it at a brisk clip. It's written for 3-5 octaves; I think we played from about G3 to C8 with 10 people, like this:

1. Bass 1 (sharing G3-F4)
2. Bass 2 (sharing G3-F4)
3. GA4
4. B4 C5
5. DE5
6. FG5
7. AB5 B67
8. CD6 C78
9. EF67 (I think this person helped with the C8 on occasion)
10. GA67

*) Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming arr. by Gary Smoke.

A beautiful arrangement of this historic tune, it is not technically difficult, but can be musically challenging to bring out all the musical nuance. It features an almost canonical overlapping of the theme in several places. Lovely!

*) Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence arr. by Matthew Prins.

When I was planning the Prelude of Bells, I asked the group if anybody wanted to do any solo or small ensemble pieces. Marsha Dyslin and her 2 daughters Sara & Debbie said they'd like to do a trio. I posted a request for suggestions at the Handbell Podcast Community & Matthew replied with this unpublished trio. I presented it along with a couple of other trios to the Dyslins & they chose to do Matthew's piece. I borrowed Ruben's Peery bell tree stand (along with the 2 extra arms for the thing) and they went to work. It's a really lovely arrangement and they played it well. :-)

*) Savior of the Nations, Come arr. by Cathy Moklebust.

I like to use chimes for the melody at the beginning & end. Meanwhile, at the beginning, I have the bass chords "robot ring". In a "robot ring", the ringer does the preparation and the strike, but does not follow through. They "park" the bell. I described the sonic and visual aspects of this a few days ago in the post about Etz Chayim because I had them robot ring on the piece we did for the Kaddish, "Tropes". At the end of "Savior", the bass ringers gyro instead of robot ring. We used the percussion, too.

*) Symphonia on 'Hyfrydol', retitled for this program as Symphonia on 'Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus' arr. by Kevin McChesney.

Elaine Collins performed this solo piece, after working on it less than a month! It's a fairly challenging piece so she took it a bit under tempo and abridged the ending mallet section. There were a few minor issues with it, but *especially* considering how little time she'd had to prepare it, she did a great job. She's planning to continue working on it & present it again at our Spring Concert in May. (Yay!) I hope it stays in her repertoire for a long time to come!

*) Of the Father's Love Begotten arr. by John Behnke.

I first conducted this piece back in 2000, when I was still in Cleveland directing the "Ring of Truth" bell choir. Back then, I added a cello line to it because we had a cellist who *really* wanted to play "Divinum Mysterium" with us. This time, there was no cello, so we did it as written. It's a bit more challenging because it changes time signatures fairly often and is more upbeat than some of the other stuff on the program. The transitions between bells & chimes, with their accompanying tempo changes, seemed to give us the most grief in rehearsal, but they really concentrated for the performance and did really well!

*) O Come, O Come, Emmanuel arr. by Christine Anderson & Daniel Kramlich.

I decided at the last minute to play a solo, too. As I said over at The Clearinghouse of Choreography: This is one of my all-time favorite handbell solos! People always seem to love it when I play it & I really love the way the melody ascends through the various keys which, to me, symbolizes our heightened anticipation of Christ's birth during the Advent Season.I wrote that in 2004 and it's still one of my favorite solos!

*) Silent Night arr. by Cathy & David Moklebust.

We have finished our Prelude of Bells with this piece for the last 3 years & we just love it. The writing for both the bells & organ is really good - the parts work together well & the organ does not overpower the bells. On the 2nd verse, I have the melody & chordal accompaniment played on chimes while the descant 8th notes are played by bells. I also ask the organ to lay out of this verse, which really brings out the chimes. (If we were doing it to accompany congregational singing, I would have the organ keep playing.) We ended this piece at 10:59, just in time for the beginning of the service proper!

When we were done playing, we moved the bell tree, all the music stands, and the wind chimes off into the "wings" so they were out of the way, and moved the rear bell table up so it was touching the front bell table in order to create room between the bell tables & the Chancel steps.

I managed to take some pictures during our setup & pre-service rehearsal & have uploaded them to Flickr. Here's a sample:



Have a happy holiday season everyone!!

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