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We are celebrating the new decade with some major changes to our favorite handbell event!  Make your plans now to join us!  You will not be disappointed!

A New Date:  March 27-29, 2020

A New Location:  Monarch Hotel & Conference Center

• • • • Complimentary Airport Transportation
      • Free Parking
      • Breakfast and lunch or dinner each day included with registration(We are still working out details)
      • On site restaurant open for breakfast, lunch and dinner
      • Walking distance to restaurants and shopping
      • Easy access to MAX light rail green line.

Hello Ringers!

If you have not booked your hotel rooms yet, please contact University Place as soon as possible.  They have agreed to extend a few double standard rooms at our $99 rate only until August 30.

Book online at www.uplacehotel.com reservation page and enter Booking Code:  GROUP, or Call 866-845-4647 and choose Option 1 to make your reservation.

For those brave souls that are ready to enter the realm of . . .  paperless music (GASP).

Link to HMA policy.

We are gearing up for another great event! The Coppers Classic 2019 Repertoire is now posted. Enjoy your summer! Looking forward to seeing everyone in October!

Since 2006, Julie Turner has been the Associate Conductor, Composer in Residence and a Board Member of Music City Bronze, Nashville’s advanced community handbell group under the direction of Principal Conductor and former Handbell Musicians of America (AGEHR) National President, John Pfeiffer. Julie’s also a ringing member of a handbell quartet called MCB-4, which is a sub-group of Music City Bronze.

Julie has been the handbell director at her church in Nashville since 1999. She holds a B.A. in Music from Cumberland University and was a contract music engraver for the United Methodist Publishing House for nine years. She has around 40 published handbell arrangements and compositions and was named Composer of the Year in 2009 by Jeffers Handbell Supply. Coppers Classic 2018 features her composition, “Jericho”.

Julie and her husband Jim have lived in Nashville since 1986, where they raised their now-grown kids, Dylan and Mallory (who are handbell ringers, of course!). Dylan and his wife Cynthia are both members of the Tennessee National Guard, and Mallory lives in Colorado pursuing her passion for singing and songwriting. Now that they’re empty-nesters, Julie and Jim shower affection on their two very spoiled cats, Ivy and Cosima.

Martha Lynn Thompson was the Organist and Associate Director of Music at St. James United Methodist Church in Little Rock, Arkansas, from 1969 until her retirement in July 2002 when she was made Organist Emeritus. Together with her husband, Feilx, they directed the handbell program which grew to include 13 bell choirs!

Martha Lynn is a 1962 graduate of Henderson State University and, in recognition of her outstanding career achievements, in 2011 she received the Distinguished Alumni Award, the highest honor the University bestows.

In 1989 she was elected American Guild of English Handbell Ringers National Secretary and for two years served on its Board of Directors. In 1995 she was given the status of Master Instructor of Handbell Notation, and in 2001 she was made an Honorary Life Member – the highest honor bestowed by the Guild.

Martha Lynn has many published arrangements and transcriptions that range from music for the beginning bell choir to music for the most advanced choirs.

Coppers Classic is delighted to include Martha Lynn’s arrangement of the Leroy Anderson classic, Sleigh Ride in our 2018 repertoire.

Coppers Classic is pleased to offer a diverse repertoire celebrating composers from around the globe. This year’s repertoire includes “On the Boardwalk” by Canadian composer, Betty Radford.

Betty has been ringing handbells for over 25 years.  After retiring from elementary music teaching she has turned her compositional skills to creating music for smaller and larger handbell choirs from level 1 – 5. She has won numerous new composition awards from the Alberta Guild of English Handbell Ringers (ALGEHR).  Betty was deeply honoured to have her composition, So Glorious and Free, chosen as the Canadian piece for the 2016 International Handbell Symposium.

Introducing the repertoire and composer/arrangers for our Coppers Classic literature is always a pleasure. “Acclamations” by Dr. William Payn  (Hope/Agape 2782) is one of his newer compositions. It was was written as a surprise for Dr. Payn’s good friend and colleague, Ramona Miller. Her ringers, with added alumni, secretly learned the piece and presented it at her final retirement performance. Ms. Miller was director of Cathedral Bells in California from 1995-2013.

Dr. Payn recently retired as director of Choral Studies and Bucknell University, Pennsylvania. He is well known as a conductor, composer and teacher. His vocal and handbell choirs have performed all over the world. Dr. Payn teaches the Conducting Master Class for Handbell Musicians of America, the biannual Virtuoso Handbell Choir held in Raleigh, and is the Music Director and Conductor of the Susquehanna Valley Chorale and Orchestra.

Pablo Casals, the world-famous cellist, conductor, composer said, “Music is the divine way to tell beautiful, poetic things to the heart.”

There is an inner buzz of excitement when beginning a new piece of music. It is all at once discovery of a new sound world, the challenge of what surprises does my part hold and the unmatched thrill of being a part of a group to make musical magic.

We’ve just posted the wonderful repertoire for Coppers Classic 2018. It is a combination of favorites from handbells “ancient” past—the 1990’s—and a couple pieces whose e-ink is still drying on the page. We have music for Christmas, a bit of jazz, spirituals, compositions by composers from Canada, Hong Kong and Japan and good old rock ‘n’ roll. There are tricky treble passages, battery-wonderful and happy-big-bass pieces. No matter where in the choir you ring, you’ll learn, you’ll work hard, you’ll grow as a handbell musician and you will leave with a deep sense of personal accomplishment.

Looking forward to making music with you in October.