Join the Westminster Concert Bell Choir for their Winter Concert, featuring holiday classics and original works for handbell choir! Performing on the world’s largest range of handbells and Choirchime® Instruments, this program will be sure to bring you warmth and good cheer amongst the winter weather.
Westminster Concert Bell Choir Bio
The Westminster Concert Bell Choir is composed of undergraduate and graduate students at Rider University. The ensemble rings under the direction of Gillian Erlenborn. This year marks the 49th year of the handbell curriculum at Westminster Choir College, the first institution in the world to develop such a program.
Hailed for its virtuosity, the Westminster Concert Bell Choir uses the largest range of handbells in the world – 8 octaves, from C1 to C9. Many of the bells are made of bronze and range in weight from four ounces to eleven pounds. The Choir also uses the large “Basso Profundo” aluminum-cast bells. The Choir supplements their handbell set with a six-octave set of Malmark Choirchime® instruments from C2 to C8 – the widest range in existence.
Frequently traveling across the country for performance tours, the Westminster Concert Bell Choir has visited more than 40 States. Most recently, the ensemble traveled the southeast in January 2024.
The Westminster Concert Bell Choir has appeared on Public Television’s Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and several holiday broadcasts of the Today Show, including one in which NBC television personalities Katie Couric and Willard Scott joined the ensemble. Its holiday performances have been heard annually on National Public Radio’s Performance Today, and it is included on NPR’s Christmas Around The Country II recording.
The Choir has performed at Carnegie Hall twice during the Christmas season and was featured on New Jersey Network’s State Of The Arts program.
In December 2002, the ensemble joined Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, Charlotte Church and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for a critically acclaimed 15-city tour entitled A Royal Christmas. The Choir also joined singer, Josh Groban, appearing at NBC’s nationally televised Lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree.
The Choir has made eleven recordings: The Pealing Bells, Westminster Concert Bell Choir, Christmas Bells, Westminster Rings!, Praise and Adoration, Christmas at Westminster: The Westminster Concert Bell Choir, By Request, Westminster Concert Bell Choir: 30th Anniversary Collection, A Time To Dance, An English Christmas, Let Freedom Ring! and is featured on the recently released recording An Evening of Readings and Carols (The 30th Anniversary Live Recording).
