5th, 6th & 7th April
This year’s National Rally was held at the Hayes Conference Centre at Swanwick in Derbyshire, so pretty close to home. Seven of us planned to go, including Peter and Hilary – National Rally first timers. We were therefore delighted when we were asked by the West Midlands Region if we would represent the region in the Saturday evening concert. We accepted, though with some trepidation – playing in front of more than 100 of our peers… Initially there were some problems with the attendance at the concert for those team members who weren’t going to the whole rally, but once that was ironed out, we could start planning our repertoire.
Wendy decided on two pieces that we were very familiar and confident with – Resound and Rejoice by American handbell composer Jason Krug, and Highland Cathedral by Ulrich Roever and Michael Korb, arranged by Julie Turner and Kevin McChesney, the latter being one of our favourites. The third (middle) piece was I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say, a beautiful interpretation of the English folk tune Kingsfold by Cathy Moklebust from the arrangement by Ralph Vaughan Williams, which we had been working and improving on, and which would form a quieter interlude.
The rally itself had a different format from usual, starting with informal rally ringing by a few teams on Friday evening. On Saturday, everyone was assigned two ringing workshops according to their (self-declared) ability and two others, with the national AGM in the early afternoon.
After dinner, we took our places in the ‘concert hall’ to await the time of our performance, which was in the middle of the evening, though we were initially daunted by the thought of ringing after the Dronfield team! But we took a collective deep breath and rang very well, to everyone’s great relief. We were complimented on the variety and range of our music and the contrast of our pieces, which was lovely. Thank you, Wendy!
On Sunday there was massed ringing for everyone with three different conductors. The first was Reflection on Finlandia, arranged and conducted by Malcolm Wilson, the second was Blues for Bells, composed by Robin Benton, and conducted by Linda McCord (this proved quite challenging!), and finally Psalm, a lovely arrangement of Crimond by Sandra Winter, who also conducted it.
Our thanks to the HRGB North West Region for organising a great weekend (though they could have arranged some slightly better weather), and we look forward to traveling south to Milton Keynes next year, when the East Anglian Region takes up the annual challenge.
Lindsay Trevarthen