I started singing in choir 3rd grade, and started to play the clarinet in 4th. Almost 11 years later, I’m in college majoring in music composition with a focus in clarinet. I’ve always been so dedicated to my writing and musicianship, a musician who was keen on trying new things. In high school, I found an after school bell choir club. I had no clue what it would entail, but figured it would be a good way to pass the time. I fell in love instantly. The motions my arms went through with the hand bells felt so natural and right, I had wished I had discovered them sooner. I became a leader in my first handbell group, conducting when the instructor was out and teaching new members proper handbell technique. I also got to write a piece for that group titled “Woodlands.” Now that I’m in college and out of this group, I’ve been trying to pioneer the first handbell choir at the University of New Hampshire (UNH) to bring the joy I felt to a wider audience. Bell ringing is such a fun way to make music that is doable by all skill levels. I think me bringing it to a wider audience would make music making more accessible to more people. Of course, I’m still ringing as much as I can as I make these steps to bring bell ringing to UNH. I also think a handbell choir would be a great asset to the composition students at UNH, such as me. Getting and learning how to compose for a lesser known instrument is such a blessing as a composer. It helps make our repertoire and skills more versatile so we can succeed in more areas when we are attempting to sell our music for a living. The sound of a bell choir is so unique, so having a set to perform an original piece on would be a delightful and informative experience. My absolute favorite piece to play with a bell choir is “Plink, Plank, Plunk!” It was originally written by Leroy Anderson, then arranged for handbells by Martha Lynn Thompson, a wonderful handbell arranger who I cannot help but adore. This piece is fun and catchy, though challenging and requiring a lot of focus. It’s intended to played with mallets instead of traditional ringing, which gives a very unique and distinctive sound. Playing this piece made me feel a part of a well oiled machine. Well, when we finally got it right. A piece I can never leave out when talking about my favorite handbell repertoire is “Carol of the Bells,” one version of which is arranged by Kevin McChesney. This piece is so iconic in and out of the bell choir world, making it hard to ignore. The overlapping sound created when all of the layers of this song are put together in a beautiful polyphonic way end up being so rich and full. It creates such a big wall of sound that’s sure to put you in the holiday spirit. The rhythm is also very satisfying to ring out, especially if you luck out and get some melody notes. Though bell choir has come later in my music career, its been so important to my growth as both a performer and a composer. Its helped me look at both facets of musicianship in different lights, seeing things in my music I haven’t seen before, even music that wasn’t related to bell choir. I cannot wait to see a bell choir community flourish again the University of New Hampshire like I know it will.

February 2nd of this year marked the one year anniversary of my father’s death. He was completely healthy, and then suddenly, he wasn’t. This horrid day changed my life. After a seemingly random seizure, doctors found a tumor in my father’s brain. They were lucky, they assured us. They found it early and it was small, it would be gone in no time. He was getting better. No time became months. Months of my father losing his mobility. Months of my father losing his brain and his memories. One day I came home from school, telling him how much I missed him. He asked me who I was. He didn’t remember his own daughter’s face. That’s when I knew it was over. I started mourning my father’s death from this cancer months before he died. His final days were the hardest. There was a hospital bed in our living room, and my father never parted from it. I didn’t want to be near him, all he did was yell. I’d come to regret that. One day, I woke up to nurses in my house. They looked at me and my brother solemnly as they spoke to my mother in hushed voices. Our father lay there, breathing laboriously on that ugly hospital bed. We already assumed so, but our mother told us today would be my father’s last day. I didn’t cry. Not then. I left the room to assemble my clarinet, rushing back in as quick as I could. Then I played. I played two pieces I would be using to audition into music school the very next day. He listened, or I hope he did. As I put my clarinet down, I could hear his breathing stop. It was kind of poetic. The last thing my father ever heard was my music. Since my father’s death from brain cancer, my family’s dynamic hasn’t been the same. We fight more, and money has become more of a struggle. We don’t have anyone to cuddle up to on the couch anymore, holding us together like a comfortable glue. Now we stray apart, sitting on opposite ends as we do our own thing. Now that it’s been a year of this, I don’t think our dynamic ever will be the same, but that’s okay. Everything in life is fleeting, including life itself. If you try to hold on too tight, you’ll hurt yourself. My whole family hurt itself, clinging onto my father’s death, hoping that some way, he would come back. I still wish he would. My father’s cancer, and subsequently, his death, taught me to let go and to live my life to the fullest. You’ll never know what’s going to happen next, so you should be living every day like it’s your last. My brother, my mother, and I, are all subscribing to this now that the dust has settled. Now that I am an undergraduate, I am currently working on a piece of musical composition to memorialize my father that I hope to have performed professionally. It is to combine the rhythm of the heartbeats of my mother, my brother, me, and most importantly, my late father. Already, this piece is bringing us closer together, as we can hear our very beat of life played together in beautiful harmony. It came full circle; Music is what is bringing us together. Maybe my family’s dynamic will be different because of the absence of my father, but different isn’t bad. My father would be proud of us for learning so much from him and creating our new and blossoming family dynamic.

My biggest dream is to be comfortable and confident, so my future self is comfortable in her own skin, has ambitions bigger than herself, and is happy and satisfied with the person she has become, while also being accepting of the person she once was.