Chime In! Music With a Mission, directed by Rick Wood, was recently featured by WTNH News Channel 8.  The story can also be found on their website here: http://wtnh.com/2017/12/01/cruisin-connecticut-chime-in-bell-choir-christmas-in-bethlehem-ct/

I’ll reprint the text below, for historical purposes.  If anyone has a link to a video, I can post that here as well.  Email [email protected]

BETHLEHEM, Conn. (WTNH) – We are Cruisin’ Connecticut to Bethlehem, home of the “Chime In!” bell choir. The handbell music group is made up of 15 players from Connecticut.

Director, Rick Wood explained how he started playing:

Music is the voice of the soul and that’s what it feels like to me. My wife Sandy and I were in the first hand bell club at Williams College when we were students. I started directing about 30 years ago.

The bell choir has had some big gigs over the past six years:

We performed in Carnegie Hall a couple of years ago.

The experience of bells is very different from playing something like trumpet or violin.

On those instruments, you play the entire line of music. In bells you play a couple notes out of that line. It requires that the players work together.

You can experience the “Chime In!” bell choir in person, Friday, December 1 at 7:00pm at Christ Church in Bethlehem during the Bethlehem Christmas Festival. They’ll also be ringing Saturday, December 9 at 1:00pm at the First Church of Bethlehem.