A New Case for Kevin

I got a call from Kevin today (he's the harp half of Bronzewood Paedeia), saying that the new flight case he bought for his harp had arrived at the Greyhound station in Hayward & did I want to go with him to pick it up?

Well, of course I said yes!

We had to park about 2 blocks away from the station & I'm sure we made quite a sight carrying the box between us -- I insisted that we stop and have someone take our picture!



I have uploaded a bunch of pics of the experience to Flickr, so check 'em out!

Kevin bought this case from the Colorado Case Company for our trip next weekend to Florida. If you're in the Pensacola area, please come see us!

ps. (Did you know you could ship things via Greyhound? I didn't!)

UPDATE: Kevin sent me an email tonight saying

There's just the right amount of space for a bit of added foam (there's zero padding in the case the way it is) and, with luck, a soft-sided case in the future.

He sent me a picture, too!

New Upload to YouTube

I uploaded a video of me playing James Meredith's "Relentless" with cellist (and fellow Sonosian) Patti TenBrook to YouTube today. Check it out!

Just because.... ;-)

Random Googling

It's amazing what you can find on the internet. Just for fun, I did a google search on "handbells" and decided to look at the images it found. One image took me to the page of singer Pamela Stein.

Pamela's great-grandmother was Alinda Burnham who is described as

an incredible musician. She was one of the first female American handbell composers, and developed a whole new handbell technique called "four-in-hand" which is still used today among handbell choirs.

Additionally,

After earning her degree at Radcliffe, then the womens' school of Harvard University, she studied composition with Nadia Boulanger at the American Academy of Fontainebleau in France in the earlier part of the Twentieth century. Aaron Copeland was among her schoolmates. Burnham and Boulanger remained friends long after Alinda's school days, sharing letters throughout their lives.

I have no idea who Alinda Burnham is and have never (knowingly) heard her music. No history book on bells I've ever read even mentions her contributions to the art.

I plan to write Pamela and ask for more details. I'd *love* to learn more about Alinda.

Stay tuned!

.

2008 Midwest Tour - some details

I am going on tour in 5 weeks! (I just got the final confirmation today.) Here are the details as I have them so far:

Wednesday, Apr 30 - Garden City, MI - Solo Concert

7:30pm = Concert - I will be accompanied by Dick Lenz on piano & organ.
Location = First United Methodist Church, 6443 Merriman Rd., Garden City, MI 48135
Tickets = FWO
More information = Please contact Paul Kinney at bellist@comcast.net or at 734-525-0198

Thursday, May 1 - Grand Rapids, MI - Solo Concert

Time = TBD
Location = TBD
More information = Please contact Stephanie Wiltse at wiltse@iserv.net

[Stevie & I are also planning to play for a senior center on Friday morning! It's going to be so much fun!!]

Friday, May 2 - West Dundee, IL - Solo Concert

Time = TBD 7:30pm - I will be accompanied by Linda Gilmore.
Location = First Congregational Church of Dundee, 900 S. Eighth St., West Dundee, IL 60018
More information = Please contact Matthew Prins at mdprins@yahoo.com

Sunday, May 4 - Shoreview, MN - church service & concert and possible workshop and/or coaching sesions!!

10:00am = church service
* possible afternoon workshop and/or coaching sessions!! *
7:00pm = Concert
Location = Peace United Methodist , 5050 Hodgson Road, Shoreview, MN 55126
More information = Dean Jensen at deanjensen@yahoo.com

I will post with more information as it comes in.

NOTE: I have played in 29 US states. MN will make # 30!! YAY!
See my map of US States in which I've played bells!

.

Rehearsal Space

Kevin & I have been rehearsing for our trip to Florida in two weeks to play with Monika & Bobby. Tonight I remembered to bring my camera along to get a shot of us in our rehearsal space - Kevin's basement:

Sonos on the Road

Sonos is going on tour to New York state next weekend. We're playing in Rochester on Friday, April 5th & in Ithaca on Sunday, April 6th. (Full details at the end of this post.)

This is mostly our "Contrasts" show featuring both American and Japanese music (along with other things such as Bach's famous "Toccata and Fugue in D minor"). In addition to the usual bells & chimes, I will be playing both flute & piccolo for this concert. (Diane Tiller will play flute, too, as she has re-joined the group for this tour. She'll play flute on "Aka Tonbo" along with her husband, Jason, on clarinet.)

As Equipment Manager of the group, it's my responsibility to make sure that all of our equipment gets there, or - and this is getting more important due to rising overweight baggage fees - to borrow it at our destination.

This show takes a LOT of equipment! In addition to our regular 8 cases of bells (holding G2-E8), we also use 5 octaves of chimes, a gong (with stand), a hand drum, a drum set, and loads of duplicate bells.

One of the pieces we're doing on this show is Edward MacDowell's "Ode to a Hummingbird" which uses the following bells IN ADDITION to our regular set. (The number in parentheses is how many of each bell.)

A4(1), B4(5),
C5(3), C#5(4), D5(3), D#5(2), E5(2), F5(1), F#5(3), G5(1), G#5(1), A5(1), B5(2),
C6(1), C#6(3), D#6(2), E6(3), F#6(3), G#6(1), A6(3), B6(1),
C7(1), & D#7(1)

Yes, this one piece takes a total of SIX B4 bells!

It's my responsibility to make sure that all of the bells we need are there -- but how do I find SIX B4s, FOUR C5s, FIVE C#5s, etc??

Fortunately, many of the ringers in Sonos own their own bells - me included. I use my own set as the primary set of duplicates - that means that if we only need one extra of a particular bell, it will be mine. If we need 2, then I ask Jason to bring his, etc., etc. I start with mine because I have a flight case, too, so it's easy for me to just put my bells in there & go.

This concert, however, uses so many duplicate bells that they won't fit into a single case - this concert requires TWO cases of duplicate bells!

Another problem: my case & the additional duplicate bell case only hold down to G4 bells. The piece "Serenity" requires a duplicate C#4 and "Toccata" a duplicate E4. Where am I going to put them??

Kathie Fink to the rescue! Kathie - who now lives in Kentucky & is not playing on this concert series - will be driving to NY to attend our concerts & owns 3 octaves of bells, so she will bring her C#4 & E4 with her for us to use. *whew!* Otherwise, I would have had to find a place to put them in with our other suitcases - perhaps in with the table covers or something - which I don't like to do because I don't really feel that the bells are adequately protected from baggage handlers that way.

Judith Triesbach - who lives in NY - will be loaning us 5 octaves of chimes for both of our concerts, so that's another suitcase we don't have to bring. (We own 4 octaves of chimes - and they all fit into one suitcase. That suitcase weighs 63 pounds, so we almost always have to pay overweight fees when we travel with it. It's better if we can borrow chimes so we don't have to pay that fee.)

The venue in Rochester has located a gong and a hand drum for us -- that's another suitcase we don't have to bring. A couple of years ago, my husband constructed a box to hold Cheryl's gong & my drum; it's been banged up pretty badly requiring Brian to fix it a couple of times, but it still works. Regardless, I'm glad we don't have to bring it on this trip - it's just one more thing to worry about.

Here's my chart of duplicate bells for this concert series:
I am also responsible for making sure that all of our borrowed equipment is insured when we travel. Our insurance covers borrowed instruments - but I have to send them the Loss Payee information & replacement cost for each item. Just more paperwork.

Anyway, here are the concert details!

Friday, April 4, 7:30 pm
Asbury First UMC
1050 East Avenue
Rochester, NY 14607
Tickets = $10 in advance; $12 at the door
For more information, please call:
(585) 271-1050

Sunday, April 6, 7:30 pm
State Theatre of Ithaca
107 West State Street
Ithaca, NY
Tickets = $24.50
For more information or to purchase tickets online, please visit:
http://www.stateofithaca.com/sonos/index.html
1-800-919-6272

If you're in the area, please stop by & be sure to come up and introduce yourself!

.

St. James' Handbell Ringers

Late last night, I was bored so I searched for "handbells" at Flickr. I ran across a photo set from a British event - photos that included people I know, so I sent a note to the -L.

I recently searched flickr for "handbell" and ran across a set of pictures taken in January in Finchamstead, Berkshire, UK, of the St James Ringers.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rtpeat/sets/72157603802412703/

The pictures have titles, but no captions, so can any of the -L's British Contingent fill us in on what's happening here?

There are pics of Keith Rowland presenting (or being presented with?) a check, and of Sandra Winter playing a solo.

The set's description is: "Pictures from the St James Handbells "Take it From Here" launch event, 26th January 2008."

What was this event? "Enquiring minds want to know!"

Today my good friend Keith Rowland replied to the -L, saying:

We were celebrating some awards that the group had achieved. Lots of ringing and a solo from Sandra. I was privileged to present a cheque for more than £8000 to Meg Hostler who had been awarded the grant from our Lottery System to spend on handbells and related equipment. This woman is a power house and never takes no for an answer. She started this handbell group in the village almost 3 years ago from scratch and now has a thriving unit, much of it down to Meg's fund-raising and organising skills and her incredible energy. My wife Wendy spent a lot of time helping to set it up and they are now up and running. It is a real success story.

I also received a note from Richard, the man who posted the pics in the first place. He attends St. James' Church & pointed me to his blog post about the event, complete with video!

Cool! Go check it out!

.

Interviewed...

About a month ago, I got an email from a representative of the Online Merchant Network saying that my name had been put on the list of possible people to interview for their Merchant Connection feature.

Since the OMN is associated with PayPal, I wasn't sure if it was some weird new sort of phishing spam or something, so I just ignored the email.

However, last week, I got an email from another representative of the OMN - but this time, she said that she goes to my church! She's a parishioner at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church and when she got the list of people to interview, she recognized my name. We set up a time (after Easter) for her to interview me & that time was today.

She said she'd send me a draft of the profile later this week for my perusal & I could expect it to be online in about a month. (I'll drop a note here when it's online, of course.)

She also said that she really enjoyed the bells on Sunday - they really did play well!

Speaking of which, I need to get back to preparing for tonight's rehearsal!

.

Happy Easter, Everybody!

The Trinity Ringers were awesome this morning! We played for 2 services - 8:30 & 10:30 - and in between them, the Vestry served breakfast to all the musicians & clergy. I've uploaded pics to the Holy Week 2008 - Trinity Episcopal Church set at Flickr.

Here's a pic of our tables for bells G4-C8:

Just Your Friendly Neighborhood Percussionist

On Thursday evening, I got an email from the Music Director at Trinity Episcopal asking:

By the way, [in our Communion Anthem] there's a bunch of extra little percussion things like chimes, triangles and crashing symbols. I don't know if we have them, but would you be game to try it out if we do?

He attached a PDF of the Percussion part to the email, so I checked it out. The part calls for suspended cymbal (both rolled & struck), triangle, and "chimes" - which means "tubular bells". I don't have a set of tubular bells, but I do have everything else & plan to substitute handbells (in octaves) for the tubes, so I told him "Sure, I'll do it!"

BTW, the piece is "Jubilate Fanfare" by Andy Beck (with instrumental parts by Steve Herold). If you have Real Audio installed, you can listen to a Real Audio sample of the piece at Music Mart.

Today I dug out all my stuff & practiced the part a bit. Here's a pic of my setup:



There are 3 other pictures, including close ups of the percussion setup, up on Flickr in the Holy Week 2008 - Trinity Episcopal Church set.

This should be lots of fun - I can't wait! :-)


.

Good Friday @ Sunnyvale Pres

I am so proud of my group - the Choir of Bells! They were awesome tonight - the leader of the contemplative ensemble said to me, "Your bells just keep getting better and better every year!"

I uploaded some pics from the pre-service rehearsal up to Flickr, but here's a pic of my group, ready to play!

Good Friday @ Trinity Episcopal

In my previous post, I mentioned that Mary Pless & I would provide harp & flute music for the "Stations of the Cross" Good Friday service at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church.

In listing the pieces that we would play, I listed 2 pieces that were originally written for bells but we would play on flute & harp. I missed one! In addition to the 2 I listed, we also played "Psalm 133" by Kris Anthony, a piece recommended to me by Stevie Wiltse. Beautiful!

I took some pictures before the service & have uploaded them to Flickr. Here's a thumbnail of Mary with her harp:



In addition to the 3 handbell pieces we played, we also played the 4th movement ("Andante Cantabile") of Persichetti's "Serenade No. 10" for flute & harp, plus Mary played 2 harp solos - Sylvia Woods' arrangements of "Motherless Child/Wayfaring Stranger" and "I Want Jesus to Walk with Me".

The congregation seemed to really enjoy our music. Many told me after the service that it was beautiful and fit perfectly into the service.

Success! :-)

.

... and speaking of Florida

In my previous post, I mentioned that Kevin & I, as Bronzewood Paedeia, will be flying to Pensacola, Florida, to do a joint concert with Monika Durbin & Bobby Griffin of MoBo Bells.

Gretchen made us an EXCELLENT poster, so I thought I should post it here!

Holy Week 2008

I've been a church musician in some capacity for almost 20 years now. Even before I started playing handbells, Christmas & Easter were very busy times for me. Now that I play handbells - and direct bell choirs at 2 churches, it seems like they're even busier!

I'm not complaining, mind you -- I gave up a good job in IT to move to California and ring handbells full time. Crazy, huh?

That doesn't mean that weeks like this don't exhaust me; they do. Still, Christmas & Easter are two of my most favorite times of the year and I wouldn't trade what I do for *anything*.

Tomorrow night, I will be subbing at First UMC of Palo Alto for their Maundy Thursday service. I got an email from Dave Ruder who forwarded a request from the Music Director there. I guess one of their ringers dropped out at the last moment or something. Anyway, I am happy to help them out -- they are playing "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence" arr by Cathy Moklebust (for the Raleigh Ringers Series).

Then Friday at noon, I will be playing flute (along with Mary Pless on harp) for Holy Trinity Episcopal Church's Good Friday Stations of the Cross service. Along with some stuff actually written for flute & harp, we'll be playing 2 handbell pieces, too! We'll play:

1. "Aria" by Cynthia Dobrinski. Kevin & I play this beautiful song on handbells and harp (it's on our CD "Sampler"). Mary & I are doing the same thing, except that I'll be playing the melody on flute instead of bells.
2. "Elysium" by Sue (Nelson) Sylvester. Available from Above the Line Publishing, the music packet includes options to play it with a full bell choir, or as a solo. I'm just playing the solo part on flute instead of bells.
   

That night, Choir of Bells of Sunnyvale Pres will play for the annual Good Friday service. The service this year will be done entirely without the spoken word. There will be vocal & instrumental music, congregational song, and silence, all with a multi-media presentation of art through the ages depicting the Passion. We will be playing 2 pieces during the service:

1. "Aria for Handbells" by Dale Wood. Based on the song "Via Dolorosa", I have asked a former ringer who has an absolutely GORGEOUS singing voice to sing the song at the beginning (instead of having the bells ring the tune), then the bell enter at measure 23 or so. This piece is entirely LV, no damping, which combined with Dale's brilliant harmonies and dissonances, creates a haunting effect. I first heard this piece when I subbed in PL Grove's group when I first moved to California & have been in love with it ever since!
2. "Broken for You" by Kath Wissinger. An original composition, she has woven a melancholy melody with a nice descant to make a really moving piece of music.

On Easter morning, the Trinity Ringers from Holy Trinity Episcopal Church will play for both the 8:30am and the 10:30am services. We 're not doing an solo pieces, but we are playing along on:

1. "Christ the Lord is Risen Today" arr by Cathy Moklebust - except that we sing the "Jesus Christ is Risen Today" text with it because that's what's in our hymnal. This is the Processional hymn & I'll conduct it. In addition to the congregational singing, it'll also have organ and brass. This will be the 3rd year that we've done this piece - the congregation really loves it!
2. "Christ is Alive" #181 (I think) from the Hymnal - just a simple descant. This is the Gospel Hymn.
   
3. "Risen Alleluia" by Allen Pote- the choir anthem, with brass and organ. This will be conducted by the choir director & I will play bells.
4. "He is Risen" #180 from the Hymnal - again just a simple descant. This is the Closing Hymn & I will play bells.
5. "Hallelujah Chorus" -- the brass, organ, & choir will sing the original Handel version while we will play from the accompaniment version arranged by Michael Keller. The first page has the bells playing along with the strings who do an "echo" of the choir and brass. This proved to be a bit confusing to my ringers last year, so I changed the first page to have us play along with the choir & brass. Our choir director will conduct this, too, and I will play bells.

Meanwhile, I have uploaded a bunch of pics to Flickr - more pics from Sonos' recent performance with the Diablo Symphony, plus some pics from the Velocity CD Release party, as well as some pics of the cool table platforms that my husband made for the SVPC bell choir to play in the balcony on Good Friday.

Looking forward, Sonos will be traveling to upstate New York - Rochester & Ithaca - the first weekend in May. Then Kevin & I will be joining Monika Durbin & Booby Griffin (MoBo Bells) in Pensacola Florida for a Saturday night concert, plus a Sunday church service & concert, and probably a school show on Monday morning! It's gonna be SO MUCH FUN and we can't wait to go! After that, I'll be teaching at the local Spring Ring, then my brothers will be visiting for a week, then I'm off to Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota for a solo tour.

Wow - I *am* busy!

Still, this is WAY better than a desk job!!

.