News
and
Updates

Registration for the 2011 AHE Summer Ring is now available!

Our Spring 2011 Newsletter is now out!

With all the good comments and airplay from KUT, The Austin Handbell Ensemble CD, Serenity is the 14th best seller in the store on their weekly Top 50 list! We even beat out the new Robert Plant CD and others.

The holiday season is right around the corner, so make sure to check out our events page for our holiday concert schedule!

Join us for FREE informal ringing sessions. Explore a variety of music with AHE directors Bob Avant and Linda Rutherford! No pressure, no performance, just plain fun!

If you think you'd be interested, please RSVP so we know how many to expect. Thanks, and see you this summer!

Christmas in Central Texas doesn't exactly fit the traditional ideal - we don't see many sugar plums or roasted chestnuts, white-tailed deer are as close as we get to reindeer, and snowfall will be pathetic at best. But one thing we can promise is good music. So come escape the holiday stress with one of our concerts and you'll feel just a little bit more like Christmas is really here.

UPDATE: The info printed on the Statesman on our 12/11 concert is incorrect; the concert is at Covenant Presbyterian at 7:30 PM. Please see the events page for further details.

Educating people of all ages about the art, history, and simple joy of handbell ringing has been a goal of the AHE since its inception. For that reason, we've been looking into mentoring a bell choir in the Austin area. So if you direct, belong to, or even just know a choir that you think would appreciate some guidance from the AHE, we would love to hear from you.

Travel the world without leaving Texas! Enjoy the haunting Welsh lullaby Suo Gan, the romantic Spanish tune Recuerdos, the beloved Japanese melody Moon Over Ruined Castle, and more! To see more about our upcoming Waco, Taylor, and Austin concerts, visit the events page.

As Spring gets underway, we are delighted that Mike Rich will be rejoining the ranks of the bass bells. Change, however, is bittersweet, as we are losing Becky Diffen and Alexis Palmer, two tremendous ringers and dear friends. Even though we are sad that their non-bell pursuits draw them away, we have every belief that bright futures await them both.

The Austin Handbell Ensemble was featured in the Life & Arts section of this morning's paper. It's a quick read, surveying a variety of topics from instruments and techniques to the histories of both our group and ringing as a whole. Have a look at the online version on Austin360.

The Austin Handbell Ensemble has a new website! It's been under development most of the summer and was built on the efforts of many people. But we feel that the new site better reflects who we are as a group now and hope you will enjoy exploring it.