Calling all recorded handbell musicians! Thank you for your Submissions!
Thank you to all who submitted recordings for this project. We will announce the list of included titles soon. Watch this page for updates!
Exciting changes have been happening for Handbell Musicians of America over the past
18 months – new technology, new website, new name – and we’re not done yet! In October of this year, we will be releasing more resources and announcing new benefits for all our members along with a new, more simplified, membership structure.
To highlight the new and current benefits available to our members, we are in the process of developing a dynamic, interactive, digital guide for members we will call, Discovering Your Membership. This digital guide will be housed on a specially designed USB flash drive in the shape of a handbell with our logo on it and will be sent free to all new members of the Guild starting this October. Along with information about membership resources and benefits, the drive will include a special Handbell Musicians of America Music Sampler to demonstrate to our new members the music making that is possible with handbells and handchimes. That’s where you come in!
We are seeking a sampling of recorded handbell music that represents a wide range of musical genres and styles as well as a variety of performers – professional and community ensembles, soloists, church choirs, university or high school groups, small ensembles – anyone that has a professional, studio recording of a published handbell work. If you fit these criteria, we invite you to submit your recordings for consideration.
Here are the guidelines and instructions for submissions:
- Performers who submit recordings must have a regular Guild membership in the name of the performer or performing group.
- Each performer or performing group must submit THREE song options. A minimum of two different handbell music publishers must be represented in the titles submitted.
- Submissions must be in mp3 format. The title of the mp3 file must have the NAME OF THE PERFORMER and the SUBMISSION NUMBER (1, 2, or 3). Example: ABCHandbellChoir1.mp3, ABCHandbellChoir2.mp3, ABCHandbellChoir3.mp3.
- The recording of each title submitted can be no more than five minutes in length.
- All titles must be currently available published handbell works. Unpublished titles or Permanently-out-of-Print titles will be disqualified.
- Submissions must be uploaded to a special FTP site we have created for this purpose.
- Those submitting recordings must also complete this application. Instructions for accessing the FTP site for file upload will be available after the application is completed and submitted.
- ALL SUBMISSIONS MUST BE RECEIVED BY 5:00 PM EST, TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012.
- Final selections will be made using the following criteria:
- Date and time submission was received
- Quality of the recording
- Elimination of duplicate titles submitted by different performers
- Variety in style, genre, composers, and publishers of the final selected list
- Total space available for the complete Music Sampler
- Handbell Musicians of America reserves the right to eliminate any submissions that do not follow these guidelines or do not meet the above criteria.
For instructions on saving (ripping) an mp3 file from your audio CD, please see these helpful pages for Mac or Windows.
Once completed, these Discover Your Membership flash drives will be available for sale to current members both through our on-line store and at National Seminar, 2012, in Cincinnati, Ohio.
So help us put together a truly diverse sampling of all that is possible with the handbell and handchime instrument.
SUBMISSIONS ARE NOW CLOSED