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Ringing true
By MICHELE MILLER, Times Staff Writer NEW PORT RICHEY -- Second period at Genesis Preparatory School has music director Ronald Turner leading his advanced bell choir through a fast-paced and rather impressive selection of music. "Make it really crisp," he instructs his students, who are ringing their way through Fanfare. A couple of claps from Turner has them stopping short. Something's not quite right. "Check your bells," he says. "We're supposed to have D-sharp there." "You guys have got to be together," Turner interjects between counting aloud "One and two and . . ." for The Great Gate of Kiev. "Let's clean that up. Think big strong Cossack soldiers; it sounds like they're limping." Turner leads his black-gloved choir through a couple of "do overs" before he lets them loose for In the Hall of the Mountain King. "Yea!" is the collective response, as the ringers collect their mallets and go for it with great gusto. "They really like that one," Turner says with a grin. They make it look easy, but there's little doubt that countless practice hours have been spent to bring the 10-member bell choir this far. "We've just started so we're a little scattered," says Chloe Raynes, a senior who has been ringing for five years. "By the end of the year, we'll be all together. It'll sound better." To the untrained ear, they sound just fine -- beautiful, in fact. A youth bell choir is a somewhat unusual music program in this day and age. Still, it's a perfect for a small private school like Genesis Prep, which houses both middle and high school students. "We only have 120 (students) in the whole school, and there's no way we would get 100 percent participation in a marching band program," Turner says. So the bell choir, started just six years ago with just one octave of bells, is a nice fit, Turner says. The response has been so good that the school now has acquired five octaves of about 61 bells. The bigger, lower octave bells cost about $900 each. Those bells have been bought with money from car washes and T-shirt and bake sales. Students benefit in a big way, Turner says. Besides the musical experience, he says, "They have to work very hard. They learn discipline and how to focus. This takes real concentration." Especially for students such as eighth-grader Omer Freiman, who rings nine bells in the bass section for God Bless America. It can be tough to keep track of, but still, Omer says, "This class is awesome." Throughout the school year, the choir puts on roughly 20 performances, which helps students develop poise, Turner says. They have taken a trip through the southeastern states and are considering plans to take part in a bell ringing festival in France as members of the American Guild of English HandbellRingers. Chloe says performing for the public is an appealing aspect of the class. "I love getting out and seeing how people react to us. A lot of people don't even know there are bell choirs," she says. "I love teaching it," says Turner, who, besides instructing the beginning and advanced choruses and bell choirs and teaching humanity and geography classes at Genesis, works as the music director at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in New Port Richey. "We walk in there, and we basically make music from the time we get in there till the time we start the next class." Making musicThe Genesis Bell Choir will perform at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 17 at the school, 7710 Osteen Road, New Port Richey. The public is invited.
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From today's Pasco Times Editorial Letters |
