Our hosts in Cortez were FABULOUS! Many ringers and chaperones had only passed through Cortez and it was so beautiful. Ringers got to stay with hosts that had furry friends and wide open spaces, which we always love.
We said goodbye to our fabulous hosts and to Pastor Jean and Cookie at FUMC, then hit the road to SLC!
The route to Salt Lake included passing through Moab. Our state is so beautiful!!
Someone tell CP that on Saturdays, we wear purple!
We were so excited to get into Salt Lake City to be apart of Ringing Up, the 2024 Area XI Handbell Festival. We are so honored to be one of the Featured Performances for this event, and everyone was SO excited to get into town.
In order to catch some of the festival events, we arrived at the venue a little early to stage set up (we got to use the freight elevator!). That way, we were able to catch the Polished Bronze rehearsal with Kevin McChesney and Stevie Berryman. So cool!!!
Sitting and watching other people ring bells on tour is a real treat!
Tonight was somewhat of an usual stop on tour—normally we don't see friends or family until the home concert at the end of tour and we usually play in churches and stay in host homes. To make it feel more like a tour stop, we organized host home stays with local WBR alum, current and former bell parents, and apPRAISEation members! Our hosts organized a fabulous dinner by the hotel and we were able to mingle with some familiar faces.
We got dressed in our formal concert attire and the ringers played an amazing concert to about 150 people, with the majority being participants from the Ringing Up festival. There is nothing like playing in front of the bell community, and we were so honored to have such an enthusiastic audience.
After the concert, so many audience members were excited to see the instruments and talk to the ringers about what they do. It was a wonderful end to a fantastic concert!
Doug Benton is showing some of our bass ringers an old ringing technique to ring bass bells with more control. We were excited to play for Kevin McChesney, who was one of the clinicians this year at Ringing Up. On top of composing many spectacular handbell pieces, Kevin composed the opening song in our program this year, Toccata No. 4, which was commissioned in memory of former assistant director, Tracey Slinger. Kevin said he hadn't heard it performed before, and was very pleased with our performance. Clinician Stevie Berryman was particularly excited to talk to Katie as she had commissioned Sondra Tucker to write "the best Christmas song ever", Christmas Kaleidoscope! Stevie was thrilled to see it on the program, and was very complimentary of our performance.
What made tonight particularly special was seeing loved ones (including Eleanor's dad, Trevor, and former WBR Andi Strong, #494 and Coltin Smith, #493) in the middle of tour. We miss you all and can't wait to see you in a week!
Leah Eubanks came out to see her son, CP, direct!
Proud ringer and director parents, Trish, John, and Leah!!
Tonight was our last night with tour chaperone Liz Nelson (we miss you Liz!!!) but we are SO excited to now have Kelly Oaks on tour with us! Yay Kelly!!
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