English ringers will visit Roncobello in the Italian Alps on 28th October 2011
A group of 43 English ringers along with friends and relatives will visit the village of Roncobello on 28th October 2011. The local school for bell-ringers will host the event with a visit to the local bell-tower and a try on the eight bells in D flat (the heaviest 1.3 tons) cast in 1954. At 8:30 p.m. a concert of campanine and English handbells will be held inside St. Peter and Paul’s church. Scuola Campanaria di Roncobello and English ringers will display their mastery with a programme of tunes accompanied by guitar, mandolin, organ and other folk instruments that usually accompany local ringers’ meetings.
The English party will be led by Stephen Pettman, one of four Suffolk representatives on the Central Council of Church Bellringers. He has been Ringing Master in Grundisburgh since 1980 and arranged several trips to Italy since 1990 every two or three years to know the Italian tradition of bell-ringing.
Roncobello ringers played their campanine for the English ringers in 2007 in the Italian village on the occasion of their first visit to the Alps. The Italian band was guested in Grundisburgh in 2008 and welcomed again Stephen and his friend in 2009, who brought for the occasion a wonderful mini-ring. The English Ringers rang last May in Friuli on the Italian Bell-Ringers Meeting, this time on a bigger mobile frame. 28th October concert in Roncobello will be preceded by English folk country dancing outside the church. English ringers will offer some change ringing and tunes, Bergamo ringers will perform Brembana Valley repertoire, helped my Japanese soprano Noriko Habuki singing tunes especially dedicated to the fascination of the sound of bells.
For more info please mail at luca.fiocchi@libero.it
