Greetings!    

It's concert season! Take a look at the LONG list of concerts happening in the next couple of months, choose one or two and GO! Westminster Choir College's Concert Bell Choir will be touring through Area 12 in May! It's great to support our handbell friends (you know how it is to play to a full house!) and gain inspiration and ideas for our own programs! After all, without an audience, it's just another rehearsal!

Russell "Rusty" Sanders was born May 29, 1959 in San Diego, CA and passed away peacefully on April 7, 2013 after a long and hard fought battle with cancer. Rusty approached this battle with the same tenacity and indomitable spirit he used with everything in life. Rusty is survived by his wife Lauren and their three children, David, Robert, and Elisabeth, as well as his two brothers, Stephen and Scott.

Rusty began his career at QUALCOMM in 1998 on a program called Net Broadcast System (NBS). NBS was a secure voice one-to-many proof of concept project demonstrating the feasibility of what is now known as the successfully deployed commercial QChat system. Rusty was a major part of the success of that program where he quickly displayed a penchant for IP and phone related protocols, diving into the guts of phone code, and manifesting an incredible curiosity of the "how" and the "functionality" of QUALCOMM's early phone code base. He was a highly valued member of QGOV at Qualcomm, where he worked for 15 years. He was well respected by his peers and considered one of the division's "go-to" technologists. Over the years, when a difficult problem surfaced, the reaction was usually "give it to Rusty". He always displayed a positive "can do" attitude on the programs he supported, and his willingness to work long hours - usually into the late night/early morning hours, weekends, and over Holidays, had a great impact on QGOV and QUALCOMM as a whole. This was especially true when he was working on the commercial (Sprint) In-Geo program, for which he was recently awarded a patent.

 

Hello, Handbell Musicians! 

  

It is not too early to start thinking about attending a fall festival to kick start your ringing season! The Redding Handbell Festival is Saturday, October 12 at Simpson University in Redding and is endorsed by Handbell Musicians of America. There will be massed ringing, classes (reading session, 4 in hand for novices, how to mark your music, percussion, 8 bell duets, musicality, hand and finger damping, just to name a few), plus Ringin' in the Red Zone Bronze Choir which is attached to the main festival for ringers wanting to play more challenging music.  Barbara Meinke will be the guest conductor for the main festival and Larry Sue will conduct the Red Zone Bronze. We will present a final concert of massed ringing, small ensembles, and soloists, which will be open to the public and free!  For registration forms, schedule, and repertoire, please check the Northern California section of the Area 12 website or contact me at my email address below.

  

Ringcerely,

 

NorCal Regional Coordinator
[email protected]

This month, I would like to share a review of our annual Spring Ring from the perspective of one of the partcipants, Sarah Bigelow, a third grade teacher and handbell musician from Gardnerville, NV.

Top Three Percussive Sounds

for Recognizing Spring 

in Northern Nevada

3. Snowflakes hitting crocus petals!

2. Sprinklers hitting frozen grass!

1. Clappers hitting bells at our Twelfth Annual Sierra           Spring Ring!

     Once again South Reno United Methodist Church was the gracious host as bell ringers gathered from near (Reno area) and far (Gardnerville, NV and Auburn, CA).

      This year our clinician, Tess Houston, opened the day with a reminder of our status in life. Yes, we play a little-known and less-understood musical instrument. Yes, we are often an enthusiastic, well-meaning group who just want to participate in the joy of making music with friends. But we are also musicians, and as musicians we owe a debt to our art. And so Tess began this year's assembly with musical exercises designed to help us improve our abilities and refine our artistic expressions.

  The day progressed smoothly and melodically as we interspersed massed-ring rehearsals with skill-based mini-lessons. Tess's lessons were designed to reassure the new ringer while challenging the 30-year expert. Perhaps the best part was the beauty of hearing melodies and harmonies doubled and tripled around oneself as the massed-ring pieces took shape.

     Our final concert featured a processional, three massed-ring pieces, one lovely song rung by Bel Canto, and a foot-tapping rouser from Tintabulations, northern Nevada's premier community handbell ensemble. Of all the percussive sounds of spring in northern Nevada, the Spring Ring is my favorite!

Hope you'll join us next Spring for another awesome Northern Nevada Spring Ring!

Barbara Walsh

Nevada Regional Coordinator

[email protected]

Bay Area Regional Coordinator

[email protected]