Our Latest “Friends” Concert Experience

Posted on November 4, 2008
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Repost from handbell-l

Just wanted to share a neat experience Embellish had last night.

Every fall we do a “Friends” concert where we join with a soloist, a group or an organization in a collaborative concert. These concerts have led to some of the most interesting, fun, enriching experiences we’ve had through the years.

Last night, thanks to a grant from a community foundation, we were able to do our Friends concert in collaboration with and as a fundraiser for a local church Community Ministries program. CM is an after-school program for kids and teens from the surrounding neighborhood; most of these kids are challenged by home situations, drugs, gangs, truancy, hunger, poverty, you name it.

Over the past two weeks, I worked with the CM Teen Club kids preparing them to play percussion on one of the pieces on our concert, and preparing the Kids Club kids to do something on bells. To say it was wild, chaotic and challenging would be an understatement! However, after some experimentation (and some sleepless nights on my part) we had a plan. I was still pretty worried about how everything was going to come off, but it all turned out wonderfully.

The leaders were a little concerned about how long to keep the kids in our concert for fear they’d get bored and be disruptive. I told their director not to worry, that disruption was fine, but she was still concerned. So, the kids came in and sat in the front rows at the start of the concert.
Embellish processed in to Mike Joy’s “Fanfare of Triumph,” and when our new bass ringer, Dennis, starting pounding the F2, I think the kids were won over!

Flexibility was the order of the day. The Teens were to play drums on “Bwana Asifiwe” but they didn’t show up! Several of them had a city-wide concert that they needed to attend, so we lost most of the teens who were into music. Others either were too shy, forgot, or didn’t have a way to get to the church. The CM director warned me that might happen. So, I invited people from the audience to come play the drums, and I got about 7 takers, including some CM leaders. Our super ringer/percussionist Russell Cooper provided encouragement and cues to the pickup drummers. It was really fun! We may have to try that again.

Then we had the Kids Club play bells. We did an Indonesian Gamelan-style piece that Sue Nelson Sylvester (a real expert on all kinds of music of different cultures) wrote, and it was PERFECT for the situation! I divided the 10 or 11 kids that were willing participants into 4 groups, playing Fs, Gs, As, and Cs. Using the point and shoot method and helpers from Embellish, we got them going on their repeated pattern. Then we added other bell patterns played by Embellish, and things really got cooking. It was so exciting. We ended with everyone shaking their bells like crazy, and the audience erupted in cheers! It was just delightful… thank you Sue!

We played a few more pieces, including Sondra Tucker’s wonderful Khumbula Ubuhle, which she composed for us. Some kids stayed for the rest of the concert, but many left to do another activity, and then returned for our encore (Plink, Plank, Plunk). The director kept the kids in the back of the sanctuary, and they were dancing and grooving to the music!

The crowd wasn’t huge, maybe about 100, but they raised nearly $1400 in a free will offering for CM!

Just wanted to share what for us was a unique and rewarding experience.
Once again, bells have changed lives and touched hearts.

Stephanie Wiltse
Music Director, Embellish
Grand Rapids, MI

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