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For the second time, Bells of the Sound was invited to perform at the Westlake Center Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony the day after Thanksgiving. The weather cooperated and the bells, ringers and audience all stayed dry. We played well and everyone had a good time!
We
decided on 6 Christmas concerts this year to work towards our goals of
increasing exposure and raising money for recording and Pinnacle.
The first four concerts were on the first blustery weekend of
December: two each day. Our
last rehearsal prior to this weekend was, in short, not good!
We ended rehearsal with a decision to rehearse Saturday morning
prior to the first concert of the weekend.
The day began with rehearsal at 9 am, loading equipment and
traveling to the Shoreline Central Market for a 12:30-2:30pm
performance. The space was
not large enough for the lower 7th octave, so we loaded them
back into the vans in the blowing rain.
At 2:30 we faced the fierce wind and rain again to load our equipment and get to the Kingston ferry. We all arrived in a gale, but in time for the ferry. Jonathan was seen fighting with his "heavy duty" wind umbrella, which the wind had turned inside out. As we left our cars to go inside on the ferry, the wind was blowing so hard it took two people to overcome the pressure on the doors. Patrice was seasick with the lively motion of the boat. Meighan thought it was fun! We crossed the Sound to Kingston and while traveling to Silverdale for our second show, a tree fell, blocking the entire road. Having no choice, we waited patiently for it to be cleared. After we were driving again, members were seen jumping out of cars to tell others to get out of the left turn lane and turn right! The driver of the vehicle in the left turn lane was ignoring the person standing outside his passenger door, because he was on his cellular phone calling another ringer who had missed the turn entirely. We arrived at Silverdale around 5:15 pm and were dry, set up and rehearsing by 6. The rehearsal went very well and we gave an excellent performance to a very responsive audience. We loaded our equipment and were on the road home by 9pm.
Sunday's performances began at 3 pm at Tibbetts United Methodist Church, the church where we regularly rehearse. The weather cooperated for the unloading of the equipment when we arrived and everyone was thankful it wasn't raining! After that concert, we loaded up, again, in the wind and rain and traveled to Holy Trinity Lutheran Church on Mercer Island for a 7 pm concert. Although we were tired, we gave a wonderful concert to a very pleasant audience. And YES, it was RAINING when we loaded our equipment for the return trip to Seattle
Two
weeks later we performed in the Grand Lobby of Benaroya Hall prior to
the Saturday Discover Music concerts.
We gave two hour-long performances with The Orca Echoes, a sixth
grade handbell choir from Maplewood School in Edmonds.
We joined the children for two of their pieces, reading the music
over their shoulders. This
was rewarding for the adults and inspiring for the children.
Meighan Pritchard, who works for the Seattle Symphony at Benaroya
Hall, organized this event. She
played her solo "O Holy Night" by Adolph Adam for her
co-workers who enjoyed her performance.
The ushers commented that they had trouble getting the audience
to leave the lobby to come in to the hall at show time!
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