Music on the Hill Rings in the Season!

No need to wait for Christmas Day to hear the bells!

Music on the Hill handbell players will ring Christmas carols and songs in the Westport Barnes and Noble store on Sunday, Dec. 6, from 1 to 3 p.m. All are welcome to “ring in the season” with festive bell music to accompany holiday shopping. The store is located at 1076 Post Road East in Westport.

The full Jubilate Ringers handbell choir -- 14 ringers playing more than 100 bells, plus handchimes and a “little something” unexpected! --will perform as part of Music on the Hill’s “Sounds of the Season” Christmas concert, to be held at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Wilton on Friday, Dec. 11, at 7:30 p.m.

“Sounds of the Season” will feature the ringers along with the Music on the Hill Festival Chorus performing Christmas carols old and new, as well as favorite carols sung and rung by all.

The Jubilate Ringers will premiere Noël, a suite of French carols arranged for handbells by Artistic Director Ellen Dickinson, the concert’s conductor. They will also ring the dramatic and hauntingly beautiful “Change Ring Prelude on Divinium Mysterium,” an arrangement of the medieval plainchant melody found in hymnals as “Of the Father’s Love Begotten.”

The Festival Chorus will sing several early German carols; arrangements of carols by American composers William Billings and Charles Ives; and a group of carols about Christmas bells, including a setting of the Tennyson poem “Ring Out Wild Bells” by contemporary American composer Linda Dowdell.

Concert tickets are $20 in advance at www.musiconthehillCT.org; $25 at the door. Children and students are admitted free.

St. Matthew’s Church is located at 48 New Canaan Road (Rte. #106) in Wilton.

Make music a New Year’s resolution! To participate in Music on the Hill workshops; to ring or sing with one of our four performing ensembles; and to receive notices of upcoming concerts in 2016 -- join our mailing list by visiting www.musiconthehillCT.org!