The Baylor Bronze Present a Christmas Handbells Concert

Baylor University’s handbells choir, The Baylor Bronze, will present their annual Christmas concert on Tuesday, December 7, beginning at 5:30 p.m. in Roxy Grove Hall. The fifteen ringers in this talented ensemble perform under the direction of Bob Avant. The Baylor Bronze is an ensemble of Baylor University students with advanced ringing experience, a team of musicians dedicated to furthering excellence in the art of handbell ringing through a variety of musical styles.
Opening the program will be Gustav Holst’s organ piece, “Personent Hodie,” known in Ron Mallory’s arrangement for handbells as “On This Day Earth Shall Ring.”
Next will come Joel Raney’s blending of Franz Gruber’s “Stille Nacht” (“Silent Night”) with the equally familiar Welsh song “Ar Hyd Y Nos” (“All Through the Night”). Raney calls this melodious piece, appropriately enough, “All Through the Silent Night.”
Also to be heard are Cathy Moklebust’s handbells setting of the seventeenth-century French tune “Picardy” (retitled “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silent”), Chris Peck’s arrangement of the sixteenth-century “Coventry Carol,” and a popular favorite from 1956 by Johnny Marks, his “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” (conducted by Johnathan Sumner, a graduate Church Music student from Waco).
The program will continue with Matthew Compton’s setting of “Realms of Glory” (using the tune “Regen Square”), the Joel Raney arrangement of Adolphe Adam’s perennially beloved “O Holy Night,” and Alex Guebert’s setting of “Carol of the Bells” by Mykola Leontovych.
The program will close with Franz Gruber’s “Stille Nacht” (“Silent Night”), as arranged for handbell ensemble by Betty Garee.
This concert is free of charge and open to the public. It is also available for livestreaming at baylor.edu/music/live.