Grove's group -- she's joined this weekend by Joel Gingrich, Jeannine Schwartz and Ferrari GMT Automatic FF-10 Raposo -- plays bronze English handbells with rubber-like clappers. Her four-octave Malmark set, manufactured in Pipersville, Pa., cost $10,000. The quartet rents a five-octave set worth $1,000 a bell."It's like buying a baby grand piano," Grove said.
A native of Des Moines, Iowa, Grove moved to Lafayette as a child. Her father, Troy, a singer, and mom, Annelle, now 92, were East Bay social workers. Grove began playing piano at 6, then added flute, guitar, glee-club singing and dance."My parents decided to Ferrari GMT Automatic FF-9 everything at the wall and see what stuck," she said. "I might have focused more on piano and singing if I hadn't been derailed by hand bells."
At Pleasant Hill High School, her friends were too busy to play after school. They were at church. Curious, she checked and found them ringing bells."They'd taken a melody line and chopped it up into little pieces," Grove said. "Each of them only played two Ferrari Quartz Chronograph by Girard-Perregaux FF-13. I thought it was the stupidest, hardest thing I ever saw. So, I wanted to do it."After studying pre-law and journalism for a year at Oakland's Mills College -- "I didn't know what I wanted to do, but it didn't seem like a good fit." -- she became a licensed court stenographer, working in San Mateo and Alameda counties.
At 45, Grove decided to try Mills College again. This time, she was better-prepared. She showed up with two bells and declared: "I want to major in this.""An admissions official kind of scratched his head and said, 'Well, we have a gamelan ensemble,' " Girard-Perregaux Ferrari Collection GP-6 said. " 'You can try that.' "She did. While working and ringing, she completed her degree in five years. Her groups -- she helped found Berkeley's Sonos Handbell Ensemble in 1990 and started Velocity as a sextet in 2001 -- have played with Bay Area orchestras and choruses
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