For Clinicians: About the Festival
About us
The Southern Colorado Handbell Alliance is an independent 501(c)(3) organization, completely separate from Handbell Musicians of America, and our sole purpose is to produce a top-notch Festival in February of every year for members of our Colorado and surrounding community.
Pre-pandemic, the festival typically had 30-35 handbell ensembles in attendance with more than 300 ringers. Our closing concert often attracted an audience of over 1,000. Like many events, we have been rebuilding in the wake of pandemic restrictions and our audiences and participant levels have been lower.
The festival includes 8-10 works of music, some of which include accompaniment by brass, percussion, or other instruments. We have a committee that selects the festival repertoire, but we invite our clinician to offer suggestions for inclusion as well as to comment on our final selections before they are sent out to the participating organizations. We start our music selection process in early May and invite you to suggest two or three selections that you would like for us to consider, particularly your own compositions or arrangements, and works with bells and brass.
What you can expect
Our clinicians usually fly in to Colorado Springs or Denver on the Friday prior to the festival and can fly out at any time on Sunday following. We provide an honorarium and expense reimbursement (flight, accommodations, transportation while in Colorado, and meals) for your participation. Of course, you would be welcome to come in earlier or stay later, and we can help you plan a longer visit to our area, if you wish. Additional nights and other related expenses would be your responsibility.
The day of the festival is action-packed, starting about 8:45am with rehearsals with the ringers, breaking for lunch, having rehearsal in the afternoon with brass and any other instrumentalists, followed by an evening concert. We usually have an emcee for the concert, so you won’t be expected to speak between every piece but can coordinate with the emcee if you’d like to address the audience in certain places. The emcee takes care of introducing the choirs, their directors, the festival planning committee, the other instrumentalists, and of course, you.
What we need from you
First, we need to know the following:
Are you available on the date we've indicated and are you interested?
What is your fee?
We can then get into the specifics on how our festival operates, how music is chosen, and what your and our expectations are.