I remember being there. What a life experience this was! We also were invited to play "It's a Small World" at Disneyland a few days earlier. That was also a wonderful time.
This was the highlight of my life. I was on camera side and 4th or 5th one from the front. Richard Viselli has now passed eternity, into the presence of God in 2017. I miss him.
There's a great shot of Marcuselle Whitfield - one of the founding ringers in Sonos Handbell Ensemble - who has since passed away. It made me cry to see her young face and see her ringing away - four-in-hand, no less. Such a landmark group and such great memories! Thanks so much to whoever posted this. P.L.
The thing I'm most impressed by is their precision marching skills! Something about ringing the bells must help them to be so precise with their marching and line formation.
Actually Markus, the precision with marching skills was totally a God-thing. We were a Christian-based organization and at practice the day before everything was chaos. Our lines were crooked, our turn was a disaster. But when we began marching, as we watched a tape of it made during the parade by several members, we were absolutely amazed. The straight lines, the precision of our marching, blew us all away and many of us were in awe. All we could believe was that the Lord blessed the group during the parade for His Glory. We marched, but HE kept our lines straight and everything precise. There is no other explanation. One other thing, the song played -- It's a Small World -- was specially arranged by Disney for us to play exclusively for the parade.From June 1987 forward, we marched at Disneyland once a month in the Main Street Parade. Since we were affiliated with Disney, one of their music directors arranged the song for handbells giving us exclusive rights to use throughout 1987 and the Rose Parade.
This is something so unique to one, have this many people playing together at once, but also marching in a parade. Too bad they didn't stop them some place and have them mic'ed so that we could actually make out what they were playing. For those who may see this and not understand what an English handbell choir is, it is a choir playing English handbells, not an English choir playing handbells.
