2001 Spring Concert

The Raleigh Ringers are gearing up for our annual Spring Concert to be held on May 20^th at 4:00 at NCSU Student Center's Stewart Theatre.  Following the performance there will be a reception for the Friends of The Raleigh Ringers.

We have brought back many favorites from last year like Pinnacle and
Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C# Minor along with some old favorites like
Tempest.   We will also present some new pieces that you are sure to enjoy like Overture to the Marriage of Figaro and Overture to the Nutcracker. 

Tickets are on sale now through Ticket Central.  Tickets purchased in advance are $5 for adults, $3 for senior citizens and children 12 and under.  Tickets purchased at the door are $6 for every

one.  You can call the ticket office at (919)515-1100 from 12:00 to 8:00 Monday - Friday and 12:00 to 5:00 on Saturday to charge your tickets on VISA or Mastercard.  Or you can mail a check payable to NCSU Ticket Central at Campus Box 7306, Raleigh, NC 27695-7306.  If you order your tickets by telephone or mail, there is a $3 service charge per order (not for each ticket.)  You can avoid the service charge by going to Ticket Central to make your purchase.  They are
located on the second floor of the
University Student Center (see map on back page).

The attendance for this performance has been growing every year so get your tickets early.

Inside this issue:

New (and Returning) Members to The Raleigh Ringers

The 2001 Raleigh Ringers welcome back three former members and welcome in three new faces this year.  Those returning to the group include Scott Harris, who took 2000 off to enjoy a belated honeymoon with his new wife.  In addition to his involvement with The RRs, Scott currently serves as AGEHR Area III treasurer and directs the adult handbell choir at Grace Community Church in Raleigh, NC.  Along with Scott, we welcome his wife Amy
Harris back to the group (who had a similar reason for taking a year off in 2000)!  Amy has

been ringing handbells since the age of nine and found it too difficult to stay away!  Our third returning RR is Barbara Marley.  Barbara is a multi-talented musician who plays the oboe, flute, recorder and
organ.  We are happy to see her car in the parking lot again, with her license plate "LOV2RING".

The three new Raleigh Ringers are almost seasoned professionals after just a few short months in the group.  Bob Auchter has rung in church choirs for six years.  He is married to Cathy and has two children.   Andy Punch began ringing bells at age twelve.  He has rung

with the Tintinnabulators and the Queen City Ringers.
Stephanie Morgan is an NCSU student majoring in biology and applied math with a music
minor.  She has been ringing bells since the sixth grade and she plays the piano and French horn.  

The Raleigh Ringers  (old, new and returnees) look forward to
a another wonderful season!   

Can We Have "MORE", Please?

You may have heard that The Raleigh Ringers released a new recording last fall.  MORE is the first-ever double handbell CD with a whopping 94 minutes of music ranging from classical masterpieces to handbell originals and, of course, our signature rock-n-roll.  Sales have been brisk thus far, but we still have a few copies left! 

We want to thank everyone for your response to MORE and we have been thrilled with your reactions:

". . .lots of excitement, lots of drive, lots of just plain good musicianship!!!"
Dale Jergenson, Handbell Composer and Publisher, San Diego, CA

"The musicianship in your group matures every time we hear a new recording and you continue to be the kind of goal-setters we so desperately need in our handbell world. "
Donald Allured, Past President AGEHR, Handbell Composer and Workshop Leader, Pensacola, FL

"MORE is really an amazing accomplishment . . . There's no other group I've ever heard that can even approach your sensitivity and control of techniques across the whole range of bells."
Jason Tiller, Ringer, Handbell Ensemble Sonos, San Francisco, CA

" The entire CD is exquisite. . . an inspiring, eventful, incredible, musical, energetic, beautiful CD"
Dr. William Payn, Handbell Composer and Director of Choral Studies, Bucknell University

To get your copy of MORE, please fill out the order form on the next page. Better yet, stop by the sales table at one of our concert sites!

2001 Concert Season

The 2001 Raleigh Ringers began the performance season with a short mini-tour.  On March 31st we visited Martinsville, Virginia and performed a concert at the Walker Fine Arts Theatre on the campus of Patrick Henry Community College.  We followed that up on April 1st with a concert at St. Paul UMC in Goldsboro, North Carolina. 

In May the Raleigh Ringers have the honor of being invited back

to the Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina (see article on page 1). 

Following our summer tour in June, (see article below) we will begin preparing for our fall concert season, which is starting to shape up as well.  We have concerts planned in Manassas, Virginia on September 8^th and Gloucester, Virginia on September 9^th.  A little later in the year, we head south.  The weekend of October 27^th and 28^th we will be

Are We There Yet?

RIDDLE:  What goes up and over and over and up some more and down and back up and down again and over that way and then back the other way?

ANSWER:  The Raleigh Ringers on Summer Tour 2001, of course!

Come June 16, we'll stuff the equipment in the moving truck, stuff the ringers in the 15-passenger van, and head-'em-up-move-'em-out to the First United Methodist Church in Parkersburg, WV.  From there it's west to
Worthington, OH's, Lord of Life Lutheran Church on June 17, then northwest on the 18^th to
St. Mark's Lutheran Church in Aurora, IL.  Immanuel Baptist Church in Lexington, KY, will beckon us south again on June 19, but won't keep us "down" for long; the next day we'll turn north toward New Albany, IN, to the stage of Floyd Central High School.  In true RR boomerang fashion, we'll "return" south on

June 21 to mid-Tennessee, where we'll bounce from First Presbyterian Church in Murfreesboro on Thursday, west to Memphis's
Evergreen Presbyterian Church on Friday, and back east to Cookeville First United Methodist Church on Saturday.  Finally heading closer to home on Sunday (whew!), we'll
perform the opening concert for Methodist Music Week at Lake
Junaluska, NC.

We can't wait to perform in the four states new to The RRs:  Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, and Tennessee.  Be sure to check our homepage (www.rr.org) for all the details.  We hope to make lots of new friends on the road this summer!

Air Bells   

Capital Area Handbell Festival

On November 4, 2000, bell choirs from near and far gathered at the Raleigh Convention Center for the 12^th Annual Capital Area Handbell Festival. Over 500 participants took advantage of the talents of clinician David Davidson of Dallas, Texas, and had an afternoon of fun and music.

Don't miss this annual event and mark your calendars now for CAHF 2001! This year's festival will be

held on Saturday, November 3rd at the Raleigh Convention Center.  The clinician will be Beth Watson, former artistic director of the
Concert Bells of Fort Worth and
President-Elect of the AGEHR.   Look for registration forms to
arrive in your mailbox  soon or visit the CAHF web site at www.webcom.com/mcklveen/CAHFC/.

Prior to the festival will be an
optional reading session with the

guest clinician, hosted by The RRs. This is a great opportunity to read some new handbell music and get some extra time with Beth Watson. Registration information for the reading session will be included with the CAHF registration materials.

We hope you can join us in
November!

The audience seemed to enjoy his contribution so we let him play "White Christmas" during which we experienced an early winter snow storm on stage.  After his final few notes the crowd went wild and The Raleigh Ringers playfully showed their appreciation by pelting him with snowballs.

Thanks again to our many fans for supporting us and for making it such a pleasure to bring the art of handbell ringing to the area.

Beginning Ringer Workshop

The Raleigh Ringers' annual Beginning Ringers Workshop will be held October 13, 2001, in the Raleigh/Cary area (location to be determined).  This workshop is designed for new ringers or those with less than 2 years ringing experience.  Greig Ashurst is returning as guest clinician this year.  Mr. Ashurst is currently director of bands at CW

Stanford Middle School in
Hillsborough, NC, and director of youth music at Duke Memorial Methodist Church in Durham, NC.  Registration forms for this workshop will be available in May.  To be included on a special mailing list for this event, please contact Andy Punch at (919)489-9901, or at napunch@msn.com.

A "Tin" donation  of $50 or more will reserve two seats at the Spring & Holiday concerts.

"Copper" contributors of $100 or more will have four seats reserved at the Spring & Holiday concerts.

"Bronze" patrons' gifts of $500 or more will receive four seats to the Spring & Holiday concerts in perpetuity.