Bell choir director lifted up by her young musicians

      The instruments that make up St. Michael Special School’s bell choir lay mute inside velvet-lined cases before being claimed by players arriving for their Tuesday morning classes inside the school’s Blessed Teresa of Calcutta Chapel.
      The magic begins when director Jill Hitchins moves a pointer across the choir’s unusual “sheet music” – a poster-size chart, set on an easel, with red and green numbers corresponding to the chords and notes of a given piece. Alternatively chiming and tinkling, the bells create a powerful musical prayer, a soothing sound that often reduces listeners to tears.
      “The students each know their number, and when I point to it they know to ring their bell,” explained Hitchins, the choir’s director since 2000, leading her attentive musicians through poignant bell arrangements for hymns such as “I Am the Bread of Life,” “Ode to Joy” and “Immaculate Mary.”
      “They don’t ever have to worry about the (note’s) letter,” said Hitchins of the color-coded, numbered notation. “To them it’s not ‘A-sharp’; it’s ‘Green-14.’”

Busy schedule
      New Orleans-born Hitchins, 57, teaches three levels of bell classes at St. Michael with assistant director Olga Rome: Introduction to Bells; Beginner Bells; and Performing Bells, the latter made up of 18 students who share their musical talents at school Masses and concerts in the New Orleans area, especially during the Advent season.
      “They just do a wonderful job!” Hitchins said, looking back at the choir’s recently completed Christmas schedule of performances. “To me the bell choir is a perfect outlet for students who may not reach a lot of academic success or athletic success, or who may not be the most popular kids in the school. They are succeeding in the bell choir. This is their time to shine.”
       In addition to ringing their bells at the correct time – and to the tempo indicated by Hitchins’ pointer – the St. Michael players look to their director for other cues while playing a selection. For example, when Hitchins places her finger in her lips, the musicians know to play their bells softly. A zigzag above the numbered notes asks the corresponding musicians to make a trilling sound with their bells (by rapidly shaking them). A mute symbol instructs them to stop their bell’s reverberations by resting it on their shoulder.

      The bell choir performs at St. Michael’s annual Guild Mass, May Crowning, graduation Mass and Christmas play, and at off-campus venues such as the Rosary Congress at St. Dominic Church, Tulane baseball games, luncheons and nursing homes. Every Advent, the white-and-blue robed choir members board a yellow school bus bound for the archdiocesan building on Walmsley Avenue to play a special concert for the archbishop and his staff. Other appearances over the years have included playing at the Christmas-lighting ceremony in the lobby of the Roosevelt Hotel and supplying the prelude music at Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s inauguration Mass inside St. Louis Cathedral.
      “My goal this year is to play at a Hornets game. We have a chart for ‘The Star Spangled Banner,’” Hitchins said, noting that churches continue to be her favorite venue for the bells.
      “I think (the bells) were designed to make spiritual music, and they just sound prettier in church,” she said. “The whole acoustical set-up in church is just very conducive to that sound.”
      Working closely with Hitchins and Rome is Jimmy Gennaro, director of St. Michael’s vocal choir.
      “We collaborate a lot in developing our newer charts, and sometimes we do performances with the singing choir and the bells combined, with Jimmy playing his guitar,” Hitchins said. “The two choirs together create such a rich, full sound,” she said, adding that she and Gennaro collaborated on composing Mass of Renewal bell arrangements for the Alleluia and the Gloria.

Can-do spirit
      The roots of the bell choir go back to 1969, when School Sister of Notre Dame Lillian McCormack, St. Michael’s foundress, heard an English bell choir perform at a luncheon.
      “Sister Lillian said, ‘Our students can do that,’” related Hitchins, a mother of three and a graduate of St. Mary’s Dominican High and the University of New Orleans who began teaching part-time at St. Michael in 1993. Hitchins, who plays four instruments, assumed the reins of the choir when its founding director, Gertrude Bischoff – “Ms. B” – retired in 2000. The new director had the advantage of dozens of bell arrangements transposed into the color-coded number notation by Bischoff and her husband George. The red-colored notes correspond to the white keys on a piano; the green notes correspond to the black keys.
      Over the years, the choir’s repertoire has grown to include bell arrangements for about 60 songs, including holy and secular Christmas pieces, liturgical music and “fun songs” such as “When the Saints Go Marching In” and “Yankee Doodle.” The musical charts are stored in three custom-built cases constructed by St. Michael’s woodworking department.

God-given rhythm
      Hitchins is always on the lookout for new bell students, asking her fellow teachers to pass along names of children who appear to be musical. In her introductory class, students play color-coded bells for fun, and “I start noticing which students it really clicks with,” Hitchins said. Proficient students progress to Beginner Bells – which Hitchins refers to as “the JV.” It is at this stage that performers hone their skills as occasional fill-ins for the performing bell choir, Hitchins said.
      “Being good at bells has nothing to do with academic ability,” she said. “Some students who might be working on their GED might not have that natural rhythm; others, who maybe can’t even read their alphabet or who have very limited speech, shine in the bells.”
      Hitchins said her favorite part of the job is watching non-verbal students express themselves through music and more verbal students settle down as soon as they pick up their instruments.
      “One thing that’s instilled very much here at St. Michael’s is that students watch out for each other,” Hitchins notes. “Those who are more capable look out for others who need help. There’s a lot of nurturing within the group, and that’s true all over the school, not just in the bell choir.”
       Hitchins, a member of the choir, social justice committee and prayer blanket ministry at her home parish of St. Ann in Metairie, considers many of her choir members to be friends, having taught some for as long as a decade. She relishes their palpable sense of accomplishment after a well-played concert.
      “It lifts me up; it takes me out of my bad mood. Their joy and their enthusiasm is what brightens my day,” she said. “Ask any teacher at St. Michael and I think they would say the same thing. The determination of the students here, their joy, their perseverance – they don’t ever give up – and the fact that they see joy in such simple things. That’s where their light comes through and I think that is their gift to the world.”
      Beth Donze can be reached at bdonze@clarionherald.org.