Heaven's Bells is an outreach choir from Piedmont Park Seventh-day Adventist church in Lincoln, NE. They play primarily for retirement communities, assisted living centers, church services, vespers, weddings, fundraisers, and other special events.
The group began touring in 2004, after a small group from Piedmont's advanced bell choir wanted more opportunities to perform. Since then, they have taken the bells to many different communities in Nebraska, Iowa, North Dakota, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, and Wisconsin. The only time they have played bells out of the country was when they took a group of 7 ringers to Peru, South America in 2003, before Heaven's Bells was actually formed.
Heaven's Bells has two parts, a core group of 6-7 ringers and 4 ringers that join the core on some of the pieces. They are a "director-less" handbell ensamble and, even when only the core group is playing, they use 4 octaves of Malmark Handbells with the 5th octave in the base and 3 octaves of Malmark Choirchimes. They also occasionally add in a variety of other instruments, including voice, flute, violin, cello, drum, tamborine, finger cymbals, triangle, and windchimes.
A huge passion of the core members of the group is attending AGEHR festivals/workshops, teaching others how to ring a large number of bells with as few people as possible, as well as putting on their own workshops to teach people how to play handbells.