New Bern...Day 5

Sunday!! Day of THE concert..the reason for all the rehearsing the last 3 days..

Schedule for the day:

8:30-8:50.. Worship service
9-11:30..rehearsal
12-1..lunch
1-3..rehearsal
4..THE CONCERT!!
5:30..load out
7-9..10th Anniversary Reception


Our Concert Consisted of the Following:

Antiphonal Alleluias..................................... Hart Morris
Sharon's Song................................................ Don Allured
Reunir .............................................................William Payn
March from Nutcracker ...............................Tchaikovsky/William Griffin
Fantasia ..........................................................Cynthia Dobrinski
Fantasy on King's Weston............................ Fred Gramann
Bolero .............................................................Ravel/William Mathis
Song of Peace................................................ Arnold Sherman
Gwerzy........................................................... Clint Hagen
Crossroads...................................................... William Payn
Amazing Grace............................................... Dean Wagner
Carnivale......................................................... Michael Glasgow
Jamican Rhumba........................................... Carol Lynn Mizell
The Stars and Stipes Forever...................... John Philip Sousa/William Griffin


The Concert went fairly well, they recorded the concert so it will be interesting to see how it all turned out. What they didn't tell us was that they were going to turn the air conditioning off in the concert room so it was SO HOT! even the audience was using anything possible to fan themselves.

According to our "guide for the weekend" there were a total of 118 ringers. Ringers from all across the country, even 2 from the United Kingdom. 16 of us were "newbies", "first timers" .

Friends of mine have wondered why I would drive 18hrs across the country to attend 4 days of handbell ringing..and not just your fiddle around handbell ringing, this was serious stuff. Everyone there had expectations of everyone else, that everyone had studied their music, that everyone was there for one reason, to accomplish the concert to the best of everyone's ability.

During the final run through of Carnivale (which is fun piece full of random crazy percussion sounds) the composer and at least one other person ran to the podium and sprayed silly string on David Davidson. It was funny, not something that would happen again during the concert but during the rehearsal it was great to have a laugh.

my personal concert experience went fairly well...there were pieces that I did great, others not so great. One of them I didn't even 100% understand the rythms so I will admit that song was the worst.

After the concert we helped put some bells away, folded some table covers and then got in the car and drove away..just like that, 4 days of rehearsing, a 1.5hr concert and we were done.

Sunday night we drove about 2.5hrs to Lumberton PA and crashed for the night.