Scarborough residents have a chance to listen to a full-length handbell concert by local home-grown players who have become internationally respected in the art.
The group Quintessence, all of whom learned their chops through the handbell choirs at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Scarborough, will present a full-length concert Saturday, June 16 at 7:30 p.m. at Melville Presbyterian Church, 70 Old Kingston Rd.
The group will present a musical program that includes various incarnations of the group from full quintet to solo.
The money will help defray the cost for the quintet to attend an international workshop at Villanova University near Philadelphia in late July.
Heather Keith of Quintessence is the first “international” ringer selected to teach at the event, now in its fourth year and the rest of the quintet, including her husband David, will attend as delegates.
Heather and husband David are longtime members of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian.
“That’s my husband’s church,” Heather said. “He was baptized there, he grew up there, we got married there.”
And as it turns out, there was more than just wedding bells in store for them.
Prior to the church purchasing their bells in 1992, the Keiths had only heard them a couple of times and had “never touched them before that.”
Although now living in Ajax with their two children, the two grew up in the city, Heather in Willowdale attending Earl Haig Collegiate Institute (where she was able to take some classes offered through the Claude Watson Arts program) and David in Scarborough, attending Woburn Collegiate Institute.
He was also a regular attendee of the Scarborough Music Camp growing up.
Heather trained in violin and piano as a youngster, but said her true musical calling was the handbells.
“It’s very expressive. That’s my instrument, the one that speaks to me the best.”
Ironically, during the day of this interview she was headed from her Ajax home back to a city high school.
“I do occasional teaching. This morning I’m going to Don Mills Collegiate. I’m teaching there for seven weeks, teaching their graduating music students how to do bells.”
David, besides a full-time job as a computer systems analyst currently working in Toronto for ExxonMobil Canada, is busy with his music. He directs one of the five St. Andrew’s handbell choirs (which his wife Heather plays in) and sings in the voice choir.
You can also find him playing trumpet as a charter member of the Argonotes, the band of the Toronto Argonauts.
