Connections by Betty Radford | Pender Joy Ringers | Laity Sunday
On Sunday, October 18 2026, Laity Sunday, Pender United Methodist Church’s Joy Ringers presented Connections, a captivating handbell composition by Canadian composer Betty Radford.
✨ Selected as the Canadian Composition for the International Symposium 2026 in Aberdeen, Scotland,
Connections is a musical journey exploring the many ways people connect with one another.
Radford has a remarkable gift for creating musical tone poems—pieces that tell stories through sound and invite listeners to recognize emotions and experiences from their own lives. In Connections, each musical section reflects a stage in the journey of human connection:
❤️ Observing • Seeking • Losing • Lost • Searching • Finding • Embracing • Celebrating
The Joy Ringers bring this story to life through an imaginative variety of handbell techniques, including chimes, mallets, rung notes, stopped sounds, suspended bells, shakes, and carefully placed LV (laissez vibrer, or “let vibrate”) passages. The rich sounds of the lowest bass chimes and bells, combined with expressive dynamics and changes in intensity, add remarkable depth and emotion to the performance.
🎶 About This Performance
- Piece: Connections
- Composer: Betty Radford
- Ensemble: Pender Joy Ringers
- Director: Brian Stevenson
- Occasion: Laity Sunday
- Performance Date: October 18, 2026
We invite you to listen closely and reflect on the connections that shape our lives—the people we encounter, the relationships we lose and rediscover, and the joy of finding our way to one another.
❤️ Pender United Methodist Church
Belong • Grow • Serve • Change Lives
Fairfax, Virginia
🌐 penderumc.org